LllU<AKy    (>!■     IIIK 


University  of  California, 


IK c CI. .1  r/.w;    ^y^^/ xcj/. 


y. 


Return  in  Jpj.  wee^i  or  a  week  before  the  end  of  the  term, 


////./" 


University  of  California. 


FROM    TH!'-.    i.IiiKARV    OK 


DR.    FRANCIS     L  I  E  15  1 :  R , 
Prufossor  <■£  History  and  Law  in  Columbia  Collof^e.  New  York. 


THK  Gll-T  OK 


MICHAEL    REESE, 

Of  .Sail  FrcV! Cisco. 
1373. 


'Z,a.L 


# 


Y'. 


I 


Now  Ready,  the  Foiirth  Edition  of 

LECTURES    ON    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE. 

George  P.  Marsh.     1  vol.  octavo,  |3.00;  in  half  calf,  $4.50. 


By 


Also: 

LECTURES  ON  THE  SCIENCE  OF  LANGUAGE.    By 

Max  Muller,  M.  A.,  Fellow  of  All  Souls'  College,  Oxford ;  Author  of 
"  The  Languages  of  the  Seat  of  War  in  the  East,"  "History  of  Sanscrit 
Literature,"  &c.  From  the  Second  Revised  London  Edition.  1  vol.  large 
12mo,  printed  at  the  Riverside  Press,  on  laid  tinted  paper,  $1.50. 

Copies  sent  hy  mail,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 


THt: 


ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 


ENGLISH    LANGUAGE, 


THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  IT  EMBODIES. 


BY 

GEORGE  P.  MARSH, 

AUTHOR  OF   "lectures  ON  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE,"  ETC.,   ETC. 


NEW  YOKK : 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER,    GRAND    STREET. 

LONDON:   SAMPSON  LOW,  SON  AND  CO. 
1862. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1862,  by 

CIIAELES  SCEIBNEE, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southeiy  District  of 

New  York. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  lectures  wliicli  compose  the  present  volume 
were  delivered  at  the  Lowell  Institute,  in  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  in  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1860 
-1861,  and  they  are  now  published,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  author,  by  the  liberal  permission  of  the  Trustees 
of  that  noble  foundation.  They  were  prepared  in  the 
summer  preceding,  with  such  aids  only  as  my  private 
library  afforded ;  and  my  departure  from  the  United 
States  in  the  spring  of  1861,  together  with  the  want 
of  access  to  collections  of  English  books  abroad,  has 
prevented  me  from  giving  them  such  a  revision  as  I 
hoped  to  be  able  to  bestow  upon  them.  They  are 
printed,  therefore,  very  nearly  as  they  were  originally 
.written ;  and  I  have  not  thought  myself  bound  to 
suppress  opinions  advanced,  or  illustrations  employed, 
in  the  delivery  of  the  lectures,  barely  because  they 
are  published  under  circumstances  different  from  those 
in  which  they  were  read. 

It  is  proper  to  add  that  the  frequent  references  in 


ADVERTISEMENT. 

the  foot-notes  and  elsewhere  to  the  "First  Series," 
apply  to  the  fourth  edition  of  a  course  of  lectures  on 
the  English  Language,  delivered  by  ine  at  New  York, 
and  published  in  1861  by  Scribner  in  that  city,  and 
by  Sampson  Low,  Son  and  Co.,  in  London. 

Geoege  p.  Marsh. 

London,  September  80,  1862. 


CONTEXTS. 


LECTUEE  I. 
Introductoet  •  •  ,  .  •  •  •  »        1 

LECTURE  II. 

OuiGiN  AND  Composition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  People  and  their  Lan- 
guage ...  .  ,  .  ,  .  .  .41 

LECTURE  III. 
Anglo-Saxon  Vocabulary,  Literature,  and  Grammar    ,  .  .88 

LECTURE  IV. 
Semi-Saxon  Literature        ,  .  .  ,  .  .  ,188 


LECTURE  V. 

English  Language  and  Literature  of  the  First  Period:  from  the 
Middle  of  the  Thirteenth  to  the  Mlddle  of  the  Fourteenth 
Century      .........     188 


LECTURE  VL 

C(>mmencement   of   Second   Period  :    from    1350  to   the   time   of   the 
/  Author  of  Piers  Ploughman      ......    259 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LECTUKE  Vn. 
The  Author  op  Piers  Ploughman  and  his  Imitators    .  •  .    295 

LECTURE  Vm. 
Wycliffe  and  his  School  .  .  ,  .  .  •  .339 

LECTURE  IX. 
Chaucer  and  Gower  ,....•.    379 


LECTURE  X. 

The  English  Language  and  Literature  from  the  Beginning  of  the 
Fifteenth  Century  to  the  time  of  Caxton        ....     454 


I^CTURE  XI. 

The  English  Language  and  Literature  from  Caxton  to  the  Accession 
of  Euzabeth  ........     482 


LECTURE  XII. 

The  English  Language  and  Literature  during  the  beign  of  Eliza- 
beth ........    535 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS   CITED  IN  THESE 
LECTURES. 


Alexanders  Saga,  udglven  af  Unger,  1848,  1  B.  Svo. 

Alfred  (King)  Anglo-Saxon  Version  of  Boethius  de  Consolatione  Philosophiae, 
edited  by  Cardale,  London,  1829,  1  vol.  8vo. 

—  Anglo-Saxon  Version  of  the  History  of  Paulus  Orosius,  -with  a  translation  by 

Thorpe,  in  Pauli's  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great.     See  Pcmli. 

Alfric  or  Aelfric,  Homilies  published  by  the  Aelfric  Society,  London,  2  vols.  Svo. 

Alisaunder  Kyng,  in  Weber's  Metrical  Eomances,  Vol.  1. 

Ancren  Eiwle,  The  Ancren  Eiwle,  a  Treatise  on  the  Rules  and  Duties  of  Monastic 

Life,  edited  and  translated  for  the  Camden  Society,  by  James  Morton,  London, 

1853,  1  vol.  4to. 
Anecdota  Literaria,  a  Collection  of  Short  Poems  in  English,  Latin  and  French, 

illustrative  of  the  Literature  and  History  of  England  in  the  Thirteenth  Century, 

edited  by  T.  Wright,  London,  1845,  1  voL  Svo. 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  The   Saxon  Chronicle,  with  an  English  translation  by 

J.  Ingram,  London,  1823,  1  vol.  4to. 

—  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  edited,  with  a  translation,  by  B.  Thorpe,  London, 

1861,  2  vols.  Svo.  in  the  series  Renim  Britannicarum  Medii  Aevi  Scriptores, 

or  Chronicles   and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the 

Middle  Ages. 

Anglo-Saxon  Gospels,  The  Anglo-Saxon  Version  of  the  Holy  Gospels,  edited  by 

B.  Thorpe,  reprinted  by  L.  F.  Klipstein,  New  York,  1846,  1  vol.  12mo.    See, 

also,  Gospels. 

Arnold,  The  Customs  of  London,  otherwise  called  Arnold's  Clironicle,  reprinted, 

London,  1811,  1  vol.  4to. 
Ascham,  Boger,  The  Schole  Master,  &c.,  London,  1570,  1  vol.  small  4to. 
Ausonius,  D.  Magni  Ausonii  Burdegalensis  Opera,  Amstelsedami,  1750,  1  vol.  ISmo. 

Bacon  (Lord)  Essayes  or  Counsels,  civil  and  morall,  newly  enlarged,  London,  1625, 

1  vol.  small  4to. 
Ballads,  English  and  Scotch  Ballads,  edited  by  Francis  James  Child,  Boston  and 

liOndon,  1861,  8  vols.  12mo. 


Viii  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   LIST  OF 

Ballot  y  Tcrres,  Gramatica  y  Apologia  de  In  Llengua  Cathalana,  Barcelona,  1  vol. 

12mo.  s.A. 
Beowulf,  Text  in  Grain's  Bibliothek,  B.  I. 
Bemers  (Lord).    See  Froissart. 
Bible,  English,  The  Holy  Bible,  conteyning  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New, 

London,  1611,  1  vol  folio. 

—  Platt-Deutsch.    See  Bugcnhagcn. 

—  Hoch-Deutsch,  or  Luther's.     See  Luther, 

—  Polyglott.     See  Stier  tmd  Thicle. 

BiondelU,  B.,  Poesie  Lombarde  Inedite  del  Secolo  XIII.,  Milano,  1856,  I  vol.  8vo. 

—  Saggio  sui  Dialetti  Gallo-Italici,  Milano,  1853,  1  vol.  8vo. 

Body  and  Soul,  Dialogue  between,  in  Appendix  to  the  Latin  Poems  attributed  to 
Walter  Mapcs,  edited  by  Wright  for  the  Camden  Society,  London,  1841, 1  vol.  4to. 

Bocthius.    See  Alfred. 

Bonncmh'c,  Histoiro  des  Paysans  depuis  la  fin  du  Moyen  Age  jusqu'a  nos  jours, 
par  Eugene  Bonnemere,  Paris,  1856,  2  T.  8vo. 

Bosworth,  A  Dictionary  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Language,  by  Eev.  J.  Bosworth, 
London,  1835,  1  vol.  8vo. 

—  The  Origin  of  the  Germanic  and  Scandinavian  Languages  and  Nations,  London, 

1846,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Bugcnhagcn,  Platt-Deutsch  translation  of  the  Bible,  Dat  ys,  De  gantze  Hillige 

Schrift  vordiidtschet  dorch  D.  Marti.  Luth.  Magdeborch,  1545,  1  B.  folio. 
Burguy,  Grammaire  de  la  Langue  d'Oil,  Berlin,  1853,  3  B.  8vo. 

Cadmon,  Genesis,  Exodus,  Daniel,  Text  in  Grein^s  Bibliothek,  B.  I. 
Caxton,  The  Game  of  the  Chesse,  reproduced  in  fac-simile  by  V.  Figgins,  London, 
1860,  1  vol.  folio. 

—  Preface  to  the  Morte  d' Arthur,  q.v» 

Chaucer,  The  Canterbury  Tales  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  a  new  text,  edited  by  T. 
Wright  for  the  Percy  Society,  London,  1847-1851,  3  vols.  12mo. 

—  Reprint  of  same  text.  s.  A.  1  vol.  8vo. 

—  The  Poetical  Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  with  Tyrwhitt's  Introductory  Dis- 

course, Notes  and  Glossary,  London,  1859,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Cheke,  Sir  John,  The  Hurt  of  Sedition,  in  Holinshcd,  Vol.  3.  q.v. 

—  Gospel  of  Matthew  and  part  of  St.  Mark's,  London,  1843,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Churchyard,  Thomas,  Chips  concerning  Scotland,  reprint,  London,  1817, 1  vol.  8vo. 
Coleridge,  A  Glossarial  Index  to  the  Printed  English  Literature  of  the  Thirteenth 

Century,  by  Herbert  Coleridge,  London,  1859,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Constancio,  Novo  Diccionario  critico  e  etymologico  da  Lingua  Portugueza,  por 
F.  S.  Constancio,  Septima  Edi^ao,  Paris,  1859,  1  T.  4to. 


WORKS   CITED    IN   THESE    LECTURES  IX 

Contzen,  Die  Wanclerungen  der  Kelten,  historisch-kritiscli  dargelegt,  von  Leopold 

Contzen,  Leipsig,  1861,  1  T.  8vo. 
Courier,  P.  L.,  Oeuvres  completes  de  Paul-Louis  Courier,  Bruxelles,  1833, 1  T.  8vo. 
Craik,   G.  L.,  History  of  the  English  Literature  and  Language,  London,  1862, 

2  vols.  8vo. 

—  Outlines  of  the  History  of  the  English  Language,  1  vol.  12mo. 

Curtasye,  Boke  of,  The  Boke  of  Curtasye,  an  En;;lish  Poem  of  the  Fourteenth 
Century,  edited  by  Halliwell  for  the  Percy  Society,  London,  1841,  1  vol.  12mo. 

Cury,  Forme  of,  The  Forme  of  Ciiry,  a  EoU  of  Ancient  Cookery,  London,  1780, 
1  vol.  8vo. 

Cynewulfs  Crist,  Text  in  GreirCs  Biblicthek,  B.  L 

Dante,  II  Convito  di  Dante  Alighieri  e  le  Epistole,  con  illustrazioni  e  note  di 

Pietro  Fraticelli,  Firenze,  1857,  1  vol.  12mo. 
Denkmaler  Altniederliindischer  Sprache  und  Litteratur,  herausgegeben  von  Kausler, 

Tiibingen,  1841,  1844,  2  B.  8vo. 
Biez,  Grammatik  der  Romanischen  Sprachen,  von  Friedrich  Diez,  2'®  Ausgabe, 

Bonn,  1856,  1860,  3  B.  8vo. 
Dubartas.     See  Sylvester. 
Bucange,  Glossarium  Mediae  et  Infimse  Latinitatis,  cum  Sup.  int.  Carpenterii  et 

aliorum,  digessit  Henschel,  Parisiis,  1840,  1850,  7  T.  4to. 

Edda,  elder  or  poetical,  Edda  Ssemundar  bins  FroSa,  Edda  Rhythmica  seu 
antiquior,  Havnise,  1787-1827,  3  T.  4to. 

—  younger  or  prose,  Edda  Snorra  Sturlusonar,  Havnise,  1848,  1852,  T.  1  et  2,  8vo. 
Edward  III.,  Poem  on  death  of,  in  Political  Poems  and  Songs  of  England,  Vol.  1. 

Egilsson,  Lexicon  Poeticum  Antiquae  Linguae  Septentrionalis  (Icelandic  and  Latin), 

conscripsit  Sveinbjorn  Egilsson,  Hafniae,  1860,  1  T.  8vo. 
Fardle   of  Facions,   London,   1555,  1  vol.  18mo.,   reprinted  in   Supplement  to 

Hakluyt,  1812. 
Fauriel,  Dante  et  la  Litterature  Italienne,  Paris,  1854,  2  T.  8vo. 
Ferguut,  Volksroman  uit  de  XIV*!'  Eeuw,  uitgegeven  door  Visscher,  Utrecht,  1830, 

1  B.  8vo. 
Ferreras,  monosyllabic  poem,  in  Ballot  y  Torres,  G-ramatica  de  la  Llengua  Cathalana. 
Fiedler  und   Sacks,  Wissenchaftliche   Grammatik  der  Englischen   Sprache,  vpn 

E.  Fiedler  und  Carl  Sachs,  Leipsig,  1861,  2  B.  8vo. 
Firmenich,  Gcrmaniens  Volkerstimmen,  Berlin,  various  years  to  1862,  3  B.  8vo. 
Fisher,  Sermon  on  the  death  of  the  Countess  of  Derby,  reprint,  London,  1708, 

1  vol.  12mo. 
Fonseca  e  CaroUno,  0  Novo  Guia  da  Conversacao  em  Portuguez  e  Inglez,  Paris, 

1855,  1  T.  12mo. 


X  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   LIST   OF 

Forhtf,  The  Vocabulary  of  East  Aiiglia,  by  Eobert  Forby,  London,  1830,  2  vols.  8vo. 

Froissart,  Sir  John,  Chronicles  of  England,  France,  Spain,  Scotland,  &c.,  trans- 
lated by  John  Bourchier,  Lord  Berners,  London,  1623, 1525,  2  vols,  folio ;  reprint, 
London,  1812,  2  vols.  4to. 

Fuller,  The  Church  History  of  Britain,  from  the  Birth  of  Jesus  Christ  until  the 
year  1648,  London,  1665,  1  vol.  folio. 

Gi7,  Alexander,  Logonomia  Anglica,  2nd  edition,  London,  1621,  small  4to. 
Golding,  The  XV  Books  of  P.  Ouidius  Naso,  entitiiled  Metamorphosis,  a  work 

verie  pleasant  and  delectable,  translated  out  of  Latin  into  English  meeter  by 

Arthvr  Golding,  Gentleman,  London,  1595,  1  vol.  small  4to. 
Gospel,  The  Gospel  according  to  Matthew  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  Northumbrian 

Versions,  Cambridge,  1858,  1  vol.  4to. 
Gower,  The  Confessio  Amantis  of  John  Gower,  edited  by  Dr.  Eeinhold  Pauli, 

London,  1857,  3  vols.  8vo. 
Graff,  E.  G.,  Diutiska,  Denkmiiler  Deutscher  Sprache  und  Litteratur,  Stuttgart  und 

Tubingen,  1826,  1829,  3  B.  8vo. 

Grein,  Bibliothek  der  Angelsachsischen  Poesie,  Gottingen,  1857-1862,  8vo.,  text* 

2  B. ;  Deutsche  Uebersetzung,  B.  I.  II. ;  Glossar.  H.  1,  2. 
Grimm,  Jacob  und  Wilhelm,  Deutsches  Worterbuch,  Leipzig,  1852-62,  B.  I.  II. 

nL  4to. 

—  Jacob,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Sprache,  2*«  Auflage,  Leipzig,  1852,  2  B. 
8vo. 

Hakluyt,  Eichard,  The  principal  Navigations,  Voyages,  and  Discoveries  made  by 
the  English  Nation,  London,  1598,  1599,  1600,  3  vols,  folio. 

—  Supplement  to  Hakluyt,  &c.,  London,  1812,  1  vol.  4to. 

Hardyngc,  John,  Chronicle  in  Metre,  with  continuation  in  Prose,  edited  by  Grafton, 

reprint,  London,  1812,  1  vol.  4to. 
Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fiir  Deutsches  Alterthum,  Leipzig,  1841-62,  12  B.  8vo. 
Hawcs,  Stephen,  The  Pastime  of  Pleasure,  reprint,  edited  by  AVright  for  Percy 

Society,  London,  1845,  1  vol.  12mo, 
Heimskringla,  Historia  Eegum  Norvegicorum,  auctore  Snorrio  Sturlseo,  Hafnige, 

1777-1826,  6  T.  folio. 

Heliand,  Poema  Saxonicum  Seculi  Noni,  edidit  G.  A.  Schmeller,  Monaci,  1830, 

1  T.  4to. 
Hereford,  Translation  of  part  of  Old  Testament,  in  Wycliffite  Versions,  q.v. 
Heywood,  John,  The  Four  Ps,  a  very  merry  Enterlude  of  a  Palmer,  a  Pardoner,  a 

Potecary,  and  a  Pedlar,  reprint  in  Dodsley's  Collection  of  Old  Plays  :  also  many 

single  plays  ;  no  collected  edition  exists. 
Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben,  Horse  Belgicse  (various    years  down  to  1857),  2'* 

Ausgabe,  11  B.  8vo. 


■\VOEKS    CITED    IN   THESE   LECTURES  xi 

Holinshed,  JRalph,  Chronicles  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  reprint,  London, 

1807-1808,  6  vols.  4to. 
Holland.     See  Fliny. 
Hooker,  Bichard^  Of  the  Lawes  of  Ecclesiasticall  Politie,  by  Eichard  Hooker, 

BookesL  to  IV.,  London,  without  date  (1594),  1  vol.  folio;    The  Fift  Booke, 

London,  1597,  1  vol.  folio. 
Horn  (Kyng)  The  Geste  of  Kyng  Horn,  in  Horn  et  Eimenhild,  edited  for  the 

Bannatyne  Club  by  Francisque  Michel,  Paris,  1845,  1  T.  4to. 
Huydecoper,  Breeder  Aantekeningen  op  Melis  Stoke,  in  his  edition  of  that  author, 

Leyden,  1772,  3  B.  8vo. 

James  (King)  /.,  Poetical  Eemains  of  James  the  First,  Perth,  1787,  1  vol.  12nio. 
Jonson,  Ben,  Works,  London,  1616-1631,  2  vols,  folio. 

Kauslcr.     See  Denkmaler  Altniederl.  Sp,  und  Lit. 

Klipstein,  Louis  F.,  A  Grammar  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Language,  New  York,  1849, 

1  vol.  12mo. 
Knox,  John,  First  Blast  of  the  Trumpet  against  the   monstrous   Eegiment  of 

Women,   in  Appendix   to    Knox's   Ilistorie  of  the  Eeformation   of  Eeligioun 

within  the  Eealme  of  Scotland,  Edinburgh,  1732,  1  vol.  folio. 
Knytlinga  Saga  in  Fornmanna  Sogur,  B.  XL,  Kaupmannaliofn,  1828,  8vo. 
Koenen,  De  Nederlandsche  Boerenstand  Historisch  Besehreven,  Haarlem,   1868, 

1  B.  8vo. 

Langlande.     See  Piers  Ploughman. 

Lang  toft.    See  Bohert  of  Brunne. 

Latimer,  The  Fyrste  Sermon  of  Mayster  Hughe  Latemer,  whych  he   preached 

before  the  kynges  maiestie,  &e.,  y"  viii.  day  of  Marche,   mcccccxlix.  (with  six 

other  sermons),  London,  John  Daye,  n.  d. 
Layamon,   La5amon's  Brut,    or   Chronicle    of  Britain,    edited    by  Sir  Frederic 

Madden,  for  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  London,  1847,  3  vols.  8vo. 
Libel  of  English  Policy,   in  Political  Poems  and   Songs,   relating  to   English 

History,  &c.  Vol.  2. 
Lillie  or  Lilly,  Euphues,  the  Anatomic  of  Wit,  Euphues  and  His  England,  by 

John  Lylie,  London,  1636,  1  vol.  small  4to. 
Lindisfarne  Gospels.     See  Gospel. 
Lorris,  Guillaum^  de.     See  Eoman  de  la  Eose. 
Luther's  German  (Hoch-Deutsch)  Bible.     See  Stier  und  Thiele. 
Lydgate,  J.,  Various  extracts  in  Warton  and  other  critical  WTiters. 

Malorye,  Sir  Thomas.     See  Morte  d' Arthur. 

Mandeville,  The  Voiage    and  Travaile  of    Sir  John  Maundeville,   Kt.  London, 


Xll  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   LIST   OF 

1725 ;  reprint,  'with  Introduction,  Notes,  and  Glossary  by  Halliwell,  London, 

1839,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Manning,  Bohcrt.     See  Robert  of  Brunne. 
Martyr,  Peter,  Decades,  in  Supplement  to  Hakluyt. 
Meting,  J.  de.     See  Roman  de  la  Eose. 
Minot,  Poems  of  Laurence  Minot  in  Political  Poems   and  Songs  of  England, 

Vol.  1. 
Miracle  Plays,  Sermon  against,  in  Reliquiae  Antiquae,  Vol.  2. 
Mirror  for  Magistrates,  reprint,  London,  1815,  3  vols.  4to. 
Moeso-Gothic  Scriptures.    See  Wfila. 

Molbcch,  €.,  Dansk  Ordbog,  anden  Udgavc,  Kjobenbavn,  1859,  2  B.  8vo. 
More,    Sir   Thomas,  The  Apologye  of  syr  Thomas  More,  knyght,  London,  n.  d. 

(1633)  1  vol.  18mo. 

—  The  "Workes  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  Knyght,  &e.,  wrytten  by  him  in  the  Englysh 

tonge,  London,  1557,  1  vol.  folio. 
Morte  d' Arthur,  The  Byrth,  Lyf,  and  Actes  of  Kyng  Arthur,  &c.,  and  in  the  end 

Le  Morte  Darthur,  London,  1485;  reprint,  edited  by  Southey,  London,  1817, 

2  vols.  4to. 
Mulcaster,  Bichard,  First  Part  of  the  Elementarie,  London,  1581,  1  vol.  sm.  4to. 

Njala,  Sagan  af  Niali  jjorgeirssyni  ok    Sonum   hans,   Kavpmannahavfn,    1772, 
1  vol.  4to. 

—  Nials  Saga,  Historia  Niali  et  Eiliorum,  Latine  reddita,  cum  Glossario,  Havnise, 

1809,  1  vol.  4to. 
Nibelungen,  Der  Nibelunge  Lied,  Abdruck  der  Handschrift  des  Freiherrn  von 
Lassberg,  Leipzig,  1840,  1  vol.  4to. 

Occleve  or  Hocclcve,  Poems  never  before  printed,  &c.,  London,  1796,  1  vol.  4to.; 

also  excerpts  in  Warton  and  other  critical  writers. 
Ohther's  narrative  in  Alfred's  Orosius,  q,v. 
Orm  or  Ormin,  The  Ormulum,  from  the  original  manuscript,  edited  by  R.  M. 

White,  Oxford,  1852,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Otfrid,  Krist,  herausgegeben  von  Graff,  Konigsberg,  1831,  1  T.  4to. 
Owl  and  Nightingale,  The  Owl  and  the  Nightingale,   an  early  English  Poem, 

edited  by  T.  Wright  for  the  Percy  Society,  London,  1843,  1  vol.  12mo. 

Paidi,  Br.  B.,  The  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great,  to  which  is  appended  Alfred's  AngJo- 

Saxon  version  of  Orcsius,  London,  1857,  1  vol.  12mo. 
Palsgrave,  L'Eclaircissement  de  la  Langue  Fran9aise,  par  Jean  Palsgrave ;  reprint, 

edited  byF.  Genin,  Paris,  1852,  1  vol.  folio. 
Pt  cock,  The  Repressor  of  over  much  blaming  of  the  Clergy,  by  Reginald  Pecock, 

London,  1860,  2  vols.  Svo. 


WORKS    CITED    IN    THESE   LECTUEES  XIU 

Fcderscn,  Christen,  Det  Ny  Testamente,    1531,   reprinted  in  Pedersen's  Danske 

Skrifter,  Kjobenliavn,  1853,  B.  III. 
Fhacr,  Translation  of  Virgil's  Aeneid,  completed  by  Twyne,  London,  1584. 
Piers  Ploughman,  The  Vision  and  the  Creed  of  Piers   Ploughman,  edited  by 

Wright,  London,  1842,  2  vols.  12mo. 
Platt-Deutsch  Bible.  See  BugenJmgen. 
Pliny,  the  elder,  Natural  History,  translated  by  Philemon  Holland,  London,  1601, 

2  vols,  folio. 
Political  Songs,  The  Political  Songs  of  England  from  the  Eeign  of  John  to  that 

of  Edward  II.,  edited  by  Wright    for  the   Camden   Society,  London,    1839, 

1  vol.  4to. 

—  Political  Poems  and  Songs  relating  to  English  History,  from  the  accession  of 

Edward  III.  to  that  of  Eichard  III.,  edited  by  Wright  in  Kev.  Brit.  Med. 

Aevi  Script.  Vol.  1,  1859,  Vol.  2,  1861. 

Porter  Com.  David,  Constantinople  and  its  Environs,  New  York,  1835,  2  vols.  8vo. 

Promptorium  Parvulorum,  sive  Clcricorum,  edited  by  Way  for   Camden  Society, 

London,  T.  1,  1843,  T.  2,  1853,  4to. 
Purchas,  Pilgrimes  and  Pilgrimages,  or  Voiages  and  Land  Travels  to  all  parts  of 

the  World,  London,  1625-6,  5  vols,  folio. 
Purvey,  Eecension  of  the  Wycliffite  Bible.     See  Wycliffe. 
Puttenham,  The  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  London,  1589  ;  reprint,  edited  by  Hasle- 

wood,  London,  1811,  1  vol.  4to. 

Basic,  Erasmus,  A  Grammar  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Tongue,  translated  by  Thorpe, 

Copenhagen,  1830,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Eaynouard,  Lexique  Eoman,  ou  Dictionnaire  de  la  Langue  des  Troubadoxirs,  Paris, 

1844,  6  T.  8vo. 
Eeliquise  Antique,   Scraps  from  ancient  Manuscripts,  by  T.  Wright  and  J.  0. 

Halliwell,  London,  1841,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Eerum  Britannicarum  Medii  Aevi   Scriptorcs,  or  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the  Middle  Ages,  now  publishing  in  8vo. 

volumes,  by  the  British  Government,  under  the  direction  of  the  Master  of  the 

Eolls.     See  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,    Capgravc,    PecocJc,    Political  Poems   and 

Songs,  Eoyal  and  Historical  Letters. 
Eichard,  Coeur  de  Lion,  Poem  on,  in  Wcber^s  Metrical  Eomances,  Vol.  2,  q.v. 
Eobert  of  Brunne,   or  Bobcrt   Manning,   Peter   Langtoffs   Chronicle  (as  illus- 
trated and  improv'd  by  Bobcrt  of  Brunne),  edited  by  Thomas  Hearne,  Oxford, 

1725,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Bobert  of  Gloucester,  Chronicle  Transcrib'd  and  now  first  publish'd  from  a  MS. 

in    the  Harleyan   Library,   by  Thomas   Hearne,  Oxford,  1724,   2  vols.   8vo; 

reprint,  London,  1810,  2  vols.  8vo. 

—  Lives  and  Legends  of  the  Saints :   St.  Brandan,  Percy  Society,   London 


XIV  BIBLIOGBAPHICAL  LIST   OF 

1844,  1  vol.  12mo ;  Life  and  Martyrdom  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  do.  London, 

1845,  1  vol.   12mo;  Fragment  on    Popular  Science,   in   Wright's  Popular 
Treatises  on  Science,  q.v. 

Roman  de  la  Rose,  le,  par  Guillaume  de  Lorris  et  Jehan  de  Meung,  edited  by 

M^on,  Paris,  1844,  4  T.  8vo. 
Roqueforty  G.  B.  B.,  Glossaire  de  la  Langue  Romane,    Paris,  1 808,  2  T.  8vo. ; 

Supplement,  ibid.  1820,  1  T.  8vo. 
Royal  and  Historical  Letters  dm*ing  the  Reign  of  Henry  IV.,  London,   1860, 

Vol.  1,  8vo.  in  Rer.  Brit.  Med.  Aev.  Script. 
Rushworth  Gospels.     See  Gospels. 

Sackville,  71,  Induction,  &c.,  in  Mirrour  for  Magistrates. 

—  Poetical  Works,  London,  1820,  8vo.  1  vol. 

—  Gorboduc,  or  Ferrex  and  Porrex  in  Dodsley's  Old  Plays. 
Sandras,  E.  G.,  Etude  sur  Chaucer,  Paris,  1859,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Schmid,  Gesetze  der  Angel-Sachsen,  2'«  Ausgabe,  1858,  1  B.  8vo. 
Shakespeare,  Works  of.  Knight's  Pictorial  Edition,  London,  1839,  8  vols.  8vo. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Arcadia,  Defence  of  Poesy,  and  other 

works,  London,  1665,  1  vol.  folio. 
Skelton,  J.,  Poetical  Works,  edited  by  Dyce,  London,  1843,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Snorri  Sturlmon.    See  Edda  the  younger,  and  Heimskringla. 
Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry  composed  in  England  in  the  Reign  of  Edward  I., 

edited  by  Wright  for  the  Percy  Society,  London,  1842,  1  vol.  12mo. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  Poetical  Works,  edited  byHillard,  Boston,  1842,  5  vols.  8vo. 
Stalder,  P.  J.,  Die  Landessprachen  der  Schweiz,  oder  Schweizerische  Dialektologie, 

Aarau,  1819,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Sta^iihurst,  Richard,  Description,  &c.,  of  Ireland  in  Holinshed,  Vol.  6. 

—  Translations,  &c.,  extracts  in  Warton. 

Stier  und    Thiele,  Polyglotten-Bibel  zum   Handgebrauch,  Bielefeld,  1854,  4  B. 

in  5,  8vo. 
Surrey  and  Wyatt,  Songs  and  Sonnets,  reprint,  London,  1717,  1  vol.  8vo. 
Surtees  Psalter,  Anglo-Saxon  and  Early  English  Psalter,  published  by  the  Surtees 

Society,  London,  1843,  1847,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Sylvester,  Bu  Bartas,  his  Divine  Weekes  and  Workes,  translated  by  Sylvester, 

London,  1611,  1  vol.  4to. 

Tegnir,  Esaias,  Samlade  Skrifter,  Stockholm,  1847-1851,  7  B.  8vo. 

Turner,    Sharon,    The    History   of   the    Anglo-Saxons,   Philadelphia,    1841,    2 

vols.  8vo. 
Tyndale,  William,  The  Newe  Testament,   1526 ;  reprint,  after  Bagster,  by  G.  P. 

Dabney,  Andover,  1837,  1  vol.  8vo. 


WORKS   CITED   IN   THESE    LECTURES  XV 

Tyndale,    William,  The  Supper  of  the  Lorde,  London,  Mcccccxxxm.  v.  daye  of 

Apryll,  1  vol.  18mo. 
Tyrwhitt.    See  Chaucer. 

Wfila,  Oder  die  uns  erhaltenen  Denkmaler  der  Gothischen  Sprache,  Text. 
Grammatik  und  Worterbxich,  bearbeitet  iind  herausgegeben  von  F.  L.  Stamm, 
Paderborn,  1858,  1  E.  8vo.  I  have  nsed  also  the  very  valuable  edition  of  the 
Fragments  of  the  Moeso-Gothic  Scriptures  by  Gabelentz   and  Loebe,   1843, 

2  B.  4to. 

Van  Maerlant,  Jacob,  Spiegel  liistoriael,  uitgegeven  door  de  Maatschappij  der 
Nederlandsche  Letterkunde,  te  Leiden,  1859—1862,  3  B.  4to. 

Vertomannus,  Travels  in  the  East,  in  Supplement  to  Hakhiyt. 

Villemarque,  Les  Romans  de  la  Table  Eonde,  et  les  Contes  des  anciens  Bretons, 
Paris,  1861,  1  vol.  8vo. 

Warton,  Thomas,  The  History  of  English  Poetry  from  the  Close  of  the  Eleventh 
to  the  Commencement  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  edited  by  Price,  London,  1840, 

3  vols.  8vo. 

Weber,   Metrical  Romances  of  the   Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,    and  Fifteenth  Cen- 
turies,  Edinburgh,  1810,  3  vols.  12mo. 
Wedgwood,  Hensleigh,  A  Dictionary  of  English  Etymology,  with  Notes  by  George 

P.  Marsh,  Vol.  1,  New  York,  1861,  8vo. 
Wilson,    or    Wylson,    The   Three   Orations   of  Demosthenes   in  Favour  of    the 

Olynthians,  and  the  Four  Philippics,  London,  1570,  1  vol.  4to. 
Wright,    T.,    Popular   Treatises   on   Science,   written   during   the   Middle  Ages, 
London,   1841,   1  vol.  8vo.      See  also  Piers  Ploughman,   Anecdota  Literaria. 
Eeliquise  Antiquse,  &c.  &c. 
Wycliffe,  Apology  for  the  Lollards,  Camden  Society,  London,  1842,  1  vol.  4to. 
—  The  Holy  Bible   in   the   earliest  English  Versions,  made  from  the  Latin 
Vulgate  by  John  Wycliffe  and  his  Followers  {Hereford  and  Purvey),  edited 
by  Eev.  J.  Forshall  and  Sir  F.  Madden,  Oxford,  University  Press,   1850, 
4  vols.  4to. 


LEOTUEES 


ENGLISH    LANGUAGE. 


LECTUEE  I. 

INTEODUCTOKY. 

The  subject  of  the  course  upon  which  I  am  about  to  enter  \^ill 
be,  as  nearly  as  I  am  able  to  express  it  in  a  comprehensive  title, 
the  Origin  and  History  of  the  English  Language,  and  of  the 
Early  Literature  it  embodies.  I  shall  not  notice  the  works  of 
those  natives  of  England  who  have  written,  on  domestic  as 
well  as  on  more  general  topics,  in  foreign  tongues,  Latin  and 
French,  because  those  works,  though  composing  a  part  of  the 
national  literature,  do  not  belong  to  the  literature  of  the  En- 
glish language,  which  alone  is  embraced  in  the  plan  of  the  pre- 
sent readings.  I  confine  myself  to  the  history  of  early  English 
literature  for  two  reasons.  The  first  is  the  impossibility  of  survey- 
ing, in  so  short  a  series  of  discourses,  the  whole  field  of  English 
intellectual  action ;  the  second,  that  the  harmonious  execution 
of  my  purpose  —  which  is  to  discuss  the  two  branches  of  the 
subject,  language  and  literature,  with  constant  reference  to 
their  reciprocal  influence  on  each  other  —  excludes  those  periods 
when  their  history  had  ceased  to  be  concurrent. 

The  English  language  had  already  gone  through  its  principal 
phases  when  the  earliest  of  the  works,  which  are  now  collec- 

B 


2  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE  Lect.  I. 

tively  known  to  most  grammarians,  lexicographers,  and  common 
readers  as  the  body  of  English  literature,  made  its  appearance. 
A  single  epoch  witnessed  the  completion  of  that  organic  action 
by  which  the  English  speech  was  developed  from  its  elements, 
and  the  beginning  of  that  one  era  of  English  authorship,  the 
products  of  which  still  subsist  as  a  consciously-felt  and  recog- 
nised agency  in  the  world  of  letters.  The  language  had  passed 
the  stages  of  infancy  and  youth,  attained  to  the  ripe  perfection 
of  manhood,  and  thus  completed  its  physiological  history,  before 
the  existing  period  of  its  literature  began.  In  treating  the  two, 
then,  the  speech  and  its  literature,  conjointly,  I  am  necessarily 
limited  to  the  centuries  when  both  were  undergoing  the  suc- 
cessive processes  of  evolution  and  growth,  and  when  the  pro- 
gi-ess  of  each  was  dependent  on  that  of  the  other,  and  conditioned 
by  it. 

This  period  extends  from  a  little  before  the  commencement 
of  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  to  the  latter  years  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, and  thus  embraces  not  far  from  four  hundred  years. 
During  this  space,  the  intellect  of  England,  stirred  at  once  by 
inborn  impulses,  and  by  external  influences,  had  become  luxu- 
riantly productive,  and  was  constantly  struggling  to  find  articu- 
late symbols  and  syntactical  combinations,  wherein  to  embody 
and  communicate  the  vivid  images,  deep  thoughts,  and  earnest 
aspirations  which  it  had  either  spontaneously  originated,  or 
appropriated  from  the  literatures  of  ancient  or  foreign  nations, 
while  the  language,  stimulated  to  a  continually  renewed  evolu- 
tion of  organic  action  by  the  necessities  of  a  regenerated  literary, 
political,  social,  and  commercial  life,  was  gradually  expanding 
into  a  largeness  of  capacity,  and  moulding  itself  into  a  fitness  of 
form,  to  serve  as  a  vehicle  for  the  vast,  and  varied,  and  strange 
conceptions  it  was  now  called  upon  to  express. 

This  process,  or  rather  this  double  series  of  processes,  was 
completed,  as  I  have  said,  about  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  our  view  of  the  language  and  its  monuments  will 
embrace  Httle  which  belongs  to  later  dates,  except  so  far  as  I 


Lect.  I.  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE  3 

may  incidentally  refer  to  subsequent  verbal  forms  or  intellectual 
products,  as  results  of  tendencies  already  manifested  in  the 
English  mind  and  its  speech,  in  the  era  which  we  are  more 
particularly  considering. 

The  tono^ue  of  Eno^land  and  her  intellectual  culture  had  now 
respectively  attained  to  a  stage  of  advancement  where  neither 
imperiously  demanded  new  capabilities  in  the  other.  The  lan- 
guage no  longer  showed  the  want  of  that  affluence,  and  polish, 
and  clearness,  and  force,  which  human  speech  can  acquire  only 
by  long  use  as  the  medium  of  written  composition  in  the  various 
forms  of  narrative,  imaginative  and  discursive  literature,  and, 
in  modern  times  at  least,  by  the  further  aid  of  exposure  to  the 
stimulating  and  modifying  influences  of  the  history,  and  poetry, 
and  philosophy,  and  grammar,  and  vocabulary  of  foreign 
tongues.  The  English  mind  and  heart,  meanwhile,  had  been 
gathering  knowledge,  and  experience,  and  strength,  and  catho- 
licity of  sympathy,  and  they  were  now  able  to  expand  to 
the  full  dimensions  of  their  growth,  gird  themselves  to  their 
mightiest  moral  and  intellectual  efforts,  and  burst  into  song,  or 
sermon,  or  story,  or  parliamentary  or  forensic  harangue,  without 
fear  that  the  mother-tongue  of  England  would  want  words  to 
give  adequate  and  melodious  expression  to  their  truest  feelings, 
their  most  solemn  convictions,  and  their  loftiest  aspirations.* 

The  history  of  this  philological  and  intellectual  progress  is 
the  too  vast  theme  of  the  present  course;  and  if  I  shall  succeed 
in  conveying  a  general  notion  of  the  gradual  living  processes 
by  which  the  English  tongue  and  its  literature  grew  up,  from 
the  impotent  utterance  and  feeble  conceptions  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  to  the  divine  power  of  expression  displayed  in  Tyndale's 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  in  the  sixteenth,  and  the  revela- 
tion of  man's  moral  nature  in  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  seventeenth,  I  shall  have  accomplished 
the  task  I  have  undertaken. 

■*  See  Illustration  I.  at  tlie  end  of  this  lectiu-e. 
B  2 


4  OLD   ENGLISH  LITERATURE  Lect.  I. 

The  linguistic  facts  and  literary  illnstrations  required  for  the 
comprehension  of  such  a  sketch  will  be  drawn  chiefly  from 
sources  familiar  indeed  to  many  of  the  audience,  but  which 
do  not  come  within  the  habitual  observation  and  knowledge  of 
what  is  called  the  re,ading  public ;  but  I  shall  endeavour  not  to 
advance  theories,  employ  technical  terms,  or  introduce  citations, 
which  will  not  easily  be  understood  by  any  person  possessed  of 
sufficient  literary  culture  to.  feel  an  intelligent  interest  in  the 
subject. 

In  all  inquiries  into  the  history  of  past  ages,  whether  as 
respects  the  material  concerns  or  the  intellectual  action  of  men, 
the  question  constantly  presents  itself:  what  was  the  inherent 
worth,  or  what  is  the  surviving  practical  importance,  of  the 
objects,  or  the  acts,  the  monuments  of  which  we  are  investi- 
gating?— and  hence  we  must  ask:  what  was  the  actual  signifi- 
cance of  that  bygone  literature,  into  which,  both  for  its  own 
sake  as  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  annals  of  the  human  mind, 
and  for  the  sake  of  the  language,  of  whose  changes  it  constitutes 
the  only  record,  we  propose  to  look  ?  The  few  examples  which 
can  be  cited  will  not,  of  themselves,  suffice  to  convey  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  special  character,  still  less  of  the  wealth, 
of  old  English  literature ;  but  I  shall  endeavour  to  illustrate 
them  by  such  biographical  or  historical  notices  as  may  serve  to 
show  their  connection  with  the  social  and  intellectual  life  of  the 
periods  and  the  people  to  which  they  belong,  and  thus  help  my 
hearers  to  arrive  at  conclusions  for  themselves  which  I  may  not 
tliiiik  it  necessary  in  all  cases  formally  to  express.  I  shall  strive 
t.l  us  to  invest  my  subject  with  a  higher  philosophical  interest 
than  belongs  to  mere  historical  grammar,  and  the  considerations 
which  suggest  themselves  in  our  survey  will,  I  hope,  give  some 
additional  incitement  to  the  impulse  now  beginning  to  be  felt 
by  so  many  scholars  towards  the  study  of  the  neglected  and 
forgotten  authors  of  ages  which  want,  indeed,  the  polish  and 
refinement  of  subsequent  centuries,  but  are,  nevertheless,  ani- 
mated and  informed  with  a  spontaneous  life,  a  freshness,  and 


Lect.  L  independency  OF   ENGLAND  5 

vigour,  rare  in  the  productions  of  eras  more  advanced  in  artificial 
culture. 

A  literature  which  extends  through  four  centuries,  and  which 
was  successively  exposed  to  the  stimulating  influences  of  such 
radical  revolutions  in  Church  and  in  State,  of  such  important 
advances  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  such  achievements 
in  fine  and  industrial  art,  and  such  triumphs  of  human  power 
over  physical  nature,  cannot  be  described  by  any  one  series  of 
epithets,  nor,  indeed,  were  its  traits  always  so  marked  that  all  its 
products  are  recognizable  as  unmistakably  of  English  growth. 
But  it  may  be  said,  in  general,  that,  more  than  most  other 
equally  imaginative  literatures,  it  was  practically  and  visibly 
connected  with  the  actual  social  being  of  man,  with  his  enjoy- 
ments and  sufferings  in  this  world,  and  his  hopes  and  fears  in 
reference  to  another.  It  was  a  reflection  of  the  waking  life  of 
an  earnest,  active  nation,  not,  like  so  much  of  the  contempo- 
raneous expression  of  Continental  genius,  a  magic  mirror  showing 
forth  the  unsubstantial  dreams  of  an  idle,  luxurious,  and  fantastic 
people. 

The  eminently  practical  character  of  old  English  literature  is 
due,  in  a  considerable  degree,  to  the  political  condition  of  the 
English  government.  The  insular  position  of  England  made 
that  kingdom,  from  the  beginning,  more  than  any  other  Euro- 
pean state,  independent  of  the  international  combinations  which, 
in  a  great  degree,  controlled  the  destiny  and  moulded  the 
institutions  and  characters  of  the  Continental  peoples,  and  this 
isolation  of  the  government  was  felt  and  shared  by  the  nation. 
It  entered  into  the  English  heart,  and  has,  in  all  the  best 
periods  of  English  literature,  constituted  a  marked  and  peculiar 
characteristic  of  its  genius.  While  the  writers  of  most  othei' 
European  countries  have  had  their  periods  aod  their  schools, 
when  now  classic,  now  romantic,  now  Grallic,  and  now  Grothic 
influences  predominated,  and  stamped  with  a  special  character, 
not  merely  the  works  of  individual  authors,  but  the  entire  lite- 
rary effort  of  the  time,  the  literature  of  England  has  never 


6  ENGLAND   INDEPENDENT   OF   ROME  Lect.  L 

submitted  itself  to  any  such  trammels,  but  has  always  maintained 
a  self-guided,  if  not  a  wholly  self-inspired,  existence ;  and  this 
is  perhaps  the  best  reason  that  can  be  given  why  Continental 
critics,  trained,  as  until  recently  they  have  been,  in  the  tradi- 
tions and  observances  of  their  schools,  have  so  generally  proved 
unable  to  comprehend  the  drift  and  true  significance  of  English 
letters. 

The  political  and  literary  independence  of  England  grew  with 
the  diminution  of  its  continental  territory.  So  long  as  the 
British  throne  held  any  important  portion  of  its  dominions  by  a 
feudal  tenure  which  obliged  it  to  acknowledge  the  suzerainty  of 
the  crown  of  France,  it  was  a  party  to  the  Continental  political 
compact,  and,  as  such,  involved  in  all  the  feuds,  and  warfares, 
and  conflicts  of  social  and  industrial  interests  which  distracted 
that  organization.  And,  what  was  even  a  greater  evil,  it  was 
subject  to  the  overshadowing  domination  of  Eome,  which  claimed 
and  received  the  homage  theoretically  due  to  the  eternal  city  as 
the  earthly  metropolis  of  the  universal  Church,  but  practically 
accorded  to  her  as  the  natural  representative  of  the  temporal 
supremacy  exercised  by  the  ancient  mistress  and  capital  of  the 
world.  But  though  England  shared  with  the  Continent  in  the 
baneful  influence  of  this  spiritual  and  semi-political  despotism, 
yet  it  was  only  at  comparatively  rare  intervals  that  it  was  felt 
and  submitted  to,  in  its  full  extent,  by  the  English  government 
and  people.  There  was  always  something  of  a  disposition  to 
inquire  into  the  foundation  of  the  authority  claimed  by  the 
Eoman  pontiff,  to  doubt  the  infallibility  of  his  decisions,  and 
to  tread  on  forbidden  ground,  by  debating  questions  which, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  papal  supremacy,  had  been  for 
ever  settled  by  a  tribunal  incapable  of  error  and  armed  with 
the  thunderbolts  of  Heaven  for  the  enforcement  of  its  decrees. 

The  Komish  see  itself,  well  knowing  that  the  geographical 
position  of  England  secured  it  from  physical  coercion,  was  slow 
to  proceed  to  extremities  against  a  crown  and  a  people  who 
might,  at  any  time,  despise  its  mandates  with  impunity.    Hence 


Lect.  I.  ENGLAND    INDEPENDENT   OF   ROME  7 

the  relations  between  the  papacy  and  England  were  generally 
like  those  between  a  sovereign  who  shuts  his  eyes  to  insurrec- 
tionary movements  in  a  rebellious  province  too  strong  or  too 
distant  to  be  reduced  by  force  of  arms,  and  a  people  that 
submits  under  protest,  and  is  biding  its  time  to  throw  off  a 
foreign  and  obnoxious  yoke.  The  English  nation  and  its  writers, 
then,  were  not  habitually  sunk  in  that  humiliating  submission 
to  the  papacy  which  long  paralyzed  the  intellectual  energy  of 
other  Christian  races,  and  restrained  them  from  the  discussion 
of  high  and  noble  themes,  nor  was  the  occupant  of  the  Koman 
see  regarded  with  that  abject  reverence  which  so  often  in  Con- 
tinental history  bestowed  upon  him  the  name  and  attributes  of 
the  Most  High.  While  Charles  V.  of  France,  in  the  great 
schism  of  the  fourteenth  century,  a  little  before  the  close  of  his 
reign,  was  making,  as  Froissart  says, '  a  specyall  command ement 
throughoute  his  realme,  that  every  manne  shulde  take  and 
repute  Clement  for  pope,  and  that  every  manne  shulde  obey 
him  as  Grod  on  erthe,'*  Wycliffe,  cheered  and  sustained  by 
many  of  the  nobility  as  well  as  commonalty  of  England  f,  was 

*  Froissart,  Lord  Berners's  Translation,  I.  c.  345.  See  Illustration  II.  at  the 
end  of  this  lecture. 

t  'Hodid  men  were  cleped  thanne  the  Lolardis,  that  wold  never  avale  here  hood 
in  presens  of  the  Sacrament,  of  whech  at  that  tyme  these  were  the  principales : 
—  AVilliam  Nevyle,  [Sir]  Lodewic  ClifForth,  Jon  Clambowh,  Eichard  Sturry, 
Thomas  Latymer,  and  werst  of  alle,  Jon  Mountagu  [Earl  of  Salisbury]  *  *  And 
of  J.  Mountagu  thei  sei  he  was  a  gret  distroyer  of  ymages,' — Capgrave^s  ChronicU, 
p.  245,  an.  1387. 

These  noblemen  and  gentlemen  seem  to  have  been  rather  obstinate  heretics, 
for  seven  years  later,  as  we  learn  from  Capgrave,  p.  260,  an.  1394,  'The  Lolardis 
set  up  scroAvis  at  Westminster  and  at  Ponies,  with  abhominable  accusaciones  of 
hem  that  long  to  the  Cherch,  whech  sounded  in  destruccioune  of  the  Sacramentis, 
and  of  statutes  of  the  Cherch.  The  meynteyneris  of  the  puple  that  were  so  infect 
were  these: — Eichard  Storry,  Lodewik  ClifForth,  Thomas  Latymer,  Jon  Moun- 
tagw.  Thei  were  principal  instructouris  of  heretikes.  The  kyng,  whan  he  had 
conceyved  the  malice  of  these  men,  he  cleped  hem  to  his  presens  and  snybbed 
hem ;  forbad  hem  eke  thei  schuld  no  more  meynten  no  swech  opiniones.' 

The  Earl  of  Salisbury,  at  least,  died  in  the  faith  he  had  espoused,  for,  when  in 
1400,  at  '  Cicetir,'  an  insurrection  was  put  down  and  '  the  town  drow  hem  [the 
rebels]  oute  of  the  Abbey,  and  smet  of  many  of  her  hedis,'  it  appears  that  '  the 
eil  of  Salesbury  was  ded  there ;  and  worthi,  for  he  was  a  gret  favorere  of  the 


8  ENGLAND   INDEPENDENT   OF   ROME  Lect.  I. 

impressing  upon  Urban,  then  recognised  by  the  English  nation 
as  the  lawful  incumbent  of  the  papal  throne,  the  lesson  that 
Victor  Emanuel  and  Graribaldi  are,  with  stronger  means  of 
'moral  suasion,'  inculcating  upon  a  stiff-necked  successor  of 
Urban  to-day.  *  I  take  as  bileve,'  wrote  Wycliffe  to  the  pope, 
'  that  none  schulde  sue  the  Pope,  ne  no  saint  that  now  is  in 
hevene,  hot  in  alsmyche  as  he  sued  Christ :  for  James  and  John 
errid,  and  Peter  and  Powl  sinned.  And  this  I  take  as  holesome 
counseile,  that  the  Pope  leeve  his  worldly  lordschip  to  worldly 
lords,  as  Christ  gaf  him,  and  move  speedily  all  his  clerks  to  do 
so ;  for  thus  did  Christ,  and  taught  thus  his  disciples,  till  the 
fende  had  blynded  this  world.  *  *  *  And  I  suppose  of  our 
Pope  that  he  will  not  be  Antichrist  and  reverse  Christ  in  this 
wirking  to  the  contrary  of  Christ's  wille.  For  if  he  summons 
agens  resoun  by  him  or  any  of  his,  and  pursue  this  unskilful 
summoning,  he  is  an  open  Antichrist.'* 

LoUardis,  a  despiser  of  sacramentis,  for  lie  wold  not  be  confessed  wlien  he  scliuld 
deie.'  —  Capgrave,  p.  276, 

*  The  orthography  of  this  passage  is  evidently  somewhat  modernised,  and  there 
are  apparently  some  trifling  verbal  errors  in  the  text,  but  I  print  it  as  I  find  it  in 
Vaiighan's  Life  of  Wycliffe,  ii.  456.  The  deliberate  judgment  of  Thomas  a  Becket, 
stoutly  as  the  interests  of  his  order  led  him  to  uphold  the  monstrous  abuse  which 
exempted  the  clergy  from  the  jurisdiction  of  lay  criminal  tribunals,  was  far  from 
favourable  to  the  papal  court.  In  writing  to  Cardinal  Albert,  he  said :  '  I  know 
not  how  it  always  happens  that,  at  the  court  of  Rome,  Barabbas  is  delivered  and 
Christ  condemned  and  crucified.'  I  cite  from  Bonnem^re,  Histoire  des  Paysans, 
i.  163,  which  I  am  happy  to  have  an  o^Dportunity  to  recommend  as  a  work  of 
great  research  and  merit. 

Capgrave,  anno  1385,  says:  'In  the  IX  5ere  of  this  king,  John  Wiclef,  the 
orgon  of  the  devel,  the  enemy  of  the  Cherch,  the  confusion  of  men,  the  ydol 
of  heresie,  the  nieroure  of  ypocrisie,  the  norischer  of  scisme,  be  the  rithful  dome 
of  God,  was  smet  with  a  horibil  paralsie  thorw  oute  his  body,'  &c.  &c.  But  not- 
withstanding this  bitterness  against  Wycliffe,  he  expresses  no  disapprobation  of 
the  application  of  Lynch  law  to  those  who,  in  1358,  'broute  the  buUes '  for  the 
excommunication  of  certain  living  transgressors  against  the  Church,  and  the  ex- 
humation of  the  bodies  of  their  deceased  accomplices.  He  cites,  with  apparent 
assent,  a.d.  1390,  the  common  opinion  that  Urban  was  'a  very  tiraunt,'  and  had 
deposed  the  English  cardinal  Adam  'for  non  other  cause'  than  that  'he  lettid 
him  mech  of  his  wrong  desire;'  and  he  evidently  believes  that  Pope  Innocent  IV., 
who  had  interfered  with  the  right  of  royal  and  seignorial  ecclesiastical  patronage 
in  England,  died  by  the  visitation  of  God  in  1251,  after  having  been  summoned  to 
judgment  by  Robert  Grostede,  late  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  appeared  to  him  in  a 


Lect.  I.  ENGLAND    INDEPENDENT    OF    ROME  9 

The  occasional  contests  between  the  Continental  sovereigns 
and  the  popes  chiefly  concerned  the  temporalities  of  the 
Church,  or  grew  out  of  questions  affecting  them,  and  there  was, 
usually,  less  disposition  to  meddle  with  doctrinal  points  or  mat- 
ters of  ecclesiastical  discipline  than  in  England.*  There  a 
bolder  spirit  of  inquiry  prevailed,  and  though  the  sovereigns 
professed  due  spiritual  obedience  to  the  papacy,  we  may  apply 
to  many  of  them  what  Fuller  says  of  Henry  VII. :  '  To  the 
Pope  he  was  submissive,  not  servile,  his  devotion  being  seldom 
without  design,  so  using  his  Holiness,  that  he  seldom  stooped 
down  to  him  in  any  low  reverence,  but,  with  the  same  gesture, 
he  took  up  something  in  order  to  his  own  ends.'  f 

The  independence  of  the  English  people  gave  their  literature 
a  fj-eer  character,  brought  it  to  bear  on  all  their  interests,  spi- 
ritual and  temporal,  and  thus  invested  it  with  a  reality  and 
straightforward  naturalness  of  thought  and  expression  not  often 
met  with  in  the  contemporaneous  writings  of  Grermanic  or 
Komance  authors. 

The  reality  of  old  English  literature,  and  its  truth  to  nature, 
do  by  no  means  imply  that  it  is  not  as  highly  original  and  inven- 
tive as  those  of  other  countries,  which  are  less  faithful  expres- 
sions of  the  every-day  thoughts,  and  feelings,  and  passions  of 
humanity.  No  man  supposes  that  Callot's  fantastic  figures  are 
more  imaginative  than  Kaphael's  life-like  creations  ;  or  that  Da 

vision,  'and  smet  him  on  the* side  with  the  pike  of  his  crosse  staff,  and  seid  thus: 
Eise,  wrech,  and  come  to  the  dom.' 

Nor  does  the  chronicler  manifest  any  indignation  at  the  ungracious  reception  of 
an  unjust  bull  issued  in  1402  :  '  In  this  tyme  cam  oute  a  bulle  fro  the  Court 
[Curia  Eomana],  whech  rcTokid  alle  the  graces  that  had  be  graunted  many  seres 
before ;  of  whech  ros  mech  slaundir  and  obliqui  ageyn  the  Cherch ;  for  thei  seide 
pleynly  that  it  was  no  more  trost  to  the  Pope  writing  than  to  a  dogge  tail ;  for  as 
ofte  as  he  wold  gader  mony,  so  oftyn  wold  he  antdlen  eld  graces  and  graunt  newe. 
— Capgravc,  p.  281. 

*  The  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  feud  in  Italy,  though  originating  in  the  riraliy  of 
two  German  princely  houses,  was  in  general,  however  disguised,  at  bottom,  little 
else  than  a  contest  between  the  imperial  throne  and  the  papal  see  for  the  temporal 
supremacy,  which  both  aspired  to  wield  as  the  representative  and  successor  of  the 
Eoman  Caesars. 

t  Church  History,  iv.  155. 


10  ENGLISH   LITEEATURE   IMAGINATIVE  Lect.  I. 

Vinci  wrought  under  a  higher  inspiration  when  he  drew  his 
caricatures  than  when  he  designed  the  Last  Supper.  The 
early  literature  of  England,  which  originated  comparatively  few 
of  what  are  technically  called  romantic  works,  was  abundantly 
fertile  in  the  exercise  of  that  best  function  of  the  imagination, 
the  creation  of  forms  of  humanity  whose  constitution  and  action 
are,  throughout,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  man's  nature ; 
and  we  find  in  it,  before  we  arrive  at  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  germs  of  every  species  of  inventive  composition 
which  English  bards  and  dramatists  have  since  made  illustrious. 
Indeed,  so  truly  did  imaginative  and  creative  power  characterise 
the  early  vernaci^lar  literature  of  England,  that,  in  spite  of  the 
life-like,  homely  truth  of  its  personages  and  its  scenery,  actual 
historical  narrative  had  but  a  very  subordinate  place  in  it.  The 
northern  and  southern  extremes  of  Christendom,  Grothic  Iceland 
and  Romance  Spain,  as  well  as  polished  France,  had  produced 
historical  works  which  almost  dispute  the  palm  with  Herodotus*, 
but  their  literatures,  though  teeming  with  extravagant  fictions 
and  elaborate  and  cunningly  wrought  versified  compositions, 
could  not  yet  boast  a  single  great  poet.  Anglo-Norman  Eng- 
land, on  the  other  hand,  had  given  birth  to  no  annalist  who  de- 
serves the  name  of  a  historian;  but  had,  in  Chaucer,  bestowed 
upon  the  world  a  poet  who,  both  in  sympathy  with  external 
nature,  and  in  the  principal  element  of  dramatic  composition  — 
the  conception  of  character,  the  individualising  of  his  personages 
—  had  far  outstripped  whatever  else  the  imaginative  literature 
of  Christendom  had  produced. 

In  these  studies,  the  progress  of  our  investigations  is  often 
arrested  by  the  want  of  sufficient  materials  to  enable  us  satis- 
factorily to  determine  the  true  character  of  particular  branches 
of  literary  effort,  or  even  to  decide  questions  of  pure  gram- 
matical form.  The  publication  of  such  of  the  remaining  me- 
morials of  early  English  and  Anglo-Saxon  literature  as  still 
survive  only  in  manuscript '  will  do  something  to  supply  our 
*  See  Illustration  III.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


LiCT.  I.  LOSS   OF   EAELT  WllITERS  11 

defect  of  knowledge  in  these  particulars  ;  but  much  of  what  we 
know  to  have  once  existed  in  those  dialects  has  irrecoverably- 
perished,  and  the  extant  records  of  the  intellectual  action  of 
England  in  the  fourteenth  and  previous  centuries  have  come 
down  to  us  in  such  an  imperfect,  and  often  evidently  corrupted 
form,  that  we  shall  never  be  as  well  acquainted  with  the  gram- 
mar and  the  literature  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  transition 
periods  as  with  those  of  the  corresponding  eras  in  the  history  of 
Continental  philology. 

The  destruction  of  the  products  of  Anglo-Saxon,  of  Anglo- 
Norman,  and  of  early  English  genius,  occasioned  by  the  Danish 
invasions,  the  civil  wars  of  different  periods,  and  the  suppression 
of  the  monasteries  in  the  sixteenth  century,  is  in  many  aspects 
much  to  be  deplored,  but  for  such  apparent  calamities  there  are, 
in  the  scheme  of  Providence,  always  sufficient  compensations. 
Not  only  must  the  old  crop  be  removed  from  the  earth  to  make 
way  for  the  new,  but  it  must  also  be  in  a  good  measure  con- 
sumed, before  adequate  stimulus  can  be  felt  for  the  industry 
which  is  required  to  produce  another  harvest.  We  have  abun- 
dant reason  to  rejoice  that  Homer,  and  Thucydides,  and  Plato, 
and  many  master-pieces  of  the  Greek  dramatists,  that  Terence, 
and  Cicero,  and  Horace,  and  Virgil,  and  much  of  Tacitus,  have 
escaped  the  casualties  which  have  destroyed  the  works  of  other 
scarcely  less  renowned  ancient  authors  ;  but  whether  the  exist- 
ence of  the  whole  body  of  Greek  and  Eoman  literature,  down  to 
the  present  day,  would  have  been  an  advantage  to  modern 
genius,  is  quite  another  question.  I  have  heard  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  of  American  scholars,  the  most  eloquent  of 
American  forensic  orators,  say  —  though,  indeed,  in  that  playful 
tone  which  so  often  left  you  in  doubt  whether  his  words  were 
to  be  taken  in  earnest  or  in  jest  —  that  he  thought  the  burning 
of  the  Alexandrian  library  a  most  fortunate  event  for  the 
interests  of  letters.  Modern  originality,  he  contended,  would 
otherwise  have  been  smothered,  modern  independence  of  thought 
overawed,  and  modern  elasticity  of  intellect  crushed  down,  by 


12  EFFECTS  OF  THE   REFORMATION  I.ect.  I. 

the  luxuriant  abundance,  and  authority,  and  weight  of  ancient 
literature. 

Genius  cannot  thrive  under  too  dense  a  shade.  It  requires 
room  for  its  expansion,  and  air  and  sunlight  for  its  nourish- 
ment. It  is  the  solitary  pasture-oak,  not  the  sapling  from  the 
sheltered  and  crowded  forest,  that  has  made  that  tree  a  symbol 
of  healthful  vigour,  and  permanence,  and  strength.  When  the 
language  and  the  literature  of  Athens  had  become  so  familiar  at 
Eome  that  every  Latin  author  wrote  under  the  influence  of 
Grecian  models,  and  every  work  of  the  imagination  was  tried 
by  the  canons  of  Greek  criticism,  when  the  republic  and  the 
empire  had  plundered  Hellas,  and  Sicily,  and  Asia  Minor  of  their 
artistic  wealth,  and  the  capital  counted  as  many  statues  as 
citizens,  then  native  literature  declined,  and  formative  art  — 
which,  indeed,  at  Rome  had  never  fairly  risen  above  the  imitative 
stage  —  became  debased,  and  neither  revived  until,  in  the  storms 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  so  many  of  those  precious  achievements  of 
Grecian  intellect  and  fancy  had  perished,  that  only  enough  were 
left  to  serve  as  incitements  by  their  excellence,  not  enough  to 
discourage  further  effort  by  a  variety  which  had  anticipated 
every  conception  of  the  creative  imagination.  The  life  and 
literature  of  a  people  may  be  inspirited,  stimulated,  modified, 
but  not  habitually  sustained  and  nourished,  by  exotic  food  or 
the  dried  fruits  of  remote  ages.  Fresh  nutriment  must  enter 
largely  into  the  daily  supply,  and  the  intellect  and  heart  of 
every  nation  must  be  stirred  by  living  sympathies  with  the 
special  good  and  evil  of  its  own  land  and  time,  as  well  as  with 
the  permanent  interests  of  universal  humanity. 

Hence  the  destruction  of  so  many  of  the  works  of  Anglo- 
Saxon,  Anglo-Norman,  and  early  English  writers  is  a  loss,  not 
to  literature,  but  only  to  what  is  of  less  importance,  the  history 
of  literature ;  and  we  may  find,  in  the  direct  benefits  resulting 
from  the  events  which  occasioned  much  of  that  destruction, 
sufficient  consolation  for  the  partial  evils  they  caused.  To  that 
fierce    Eeformation  which  levelled  the  monasteries  with  the 


Lect.  I.  POPULAR  LITERATUilE  13 

ground  and  scattered  or  annihilated  their  literary  accumulations, 
but  sowed  living  seed  wherever  it  plucked  up  dry  stubble,  we 
owe  Spenser,  and  Hooker,  and  Bacon,  and  Shakespeare,  and 
Milton,  not  one  of  whom  had  been  possible  but  for  the  fresh 
north-wind,  which,  by  sweeping  away  the  swarm  of  old  opinions, 
old  facts,  old  thoughts,  that  hung  like  a  darkening  cloud  over 
Europe,  opened  once  more  the  blue  sky,  and  the  sun  and  stars 
of  heaven  to  the  vision  of  men. 

But  though  no  inconsiderable  share  of  the  fruits  of  Saxon  and 
of  early  English  genius  has  perished,  we  have  reason  to  think 
that  most  of  their  products  which  possessed  intrinsic  worth,  or 
were  of  practical  value  to  their  own  time,  have  come  down  to  us 
in  a  more  or  less  complete  state ;  for  we  do  not  find  mention  of 
many  lost  authors  in  terms  which  give  reason  to  suppose  that 
they  were  of  special  interest  or  importance.  There  is,  however, 
evidence  that  certain  branches  of  popular  literature,  in  their 
rudimentary  stages  (if  indeed  that  can  be  called  literature  which 
was  perhaps  never  reduced  to  writing),  are  imperfectly  repre- 
sented by  their  existing  remains.  I  refer  especially  to  the  un- 
historical,  traditional,  or  legendary  narratives,  which,  whether 
song  or  saga,  verse  or  prose,  appear  to  have  constituted,  from 
the  earliest  times,  a  favourite  amusement,  and,  indeed,  almost 
the  only  refined  enjoyment,  of  the  secular  orders  among  our 
remote  progenitors.  These  were  probably,  in  general,  only 
orally  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  and  we  do  not  know  enough 
of  their  character  to  be  able  to  determine  in  what  degree  of 
relationship  they  stand  to  the  national  folk-lore  of  later  ages. 
Several  of  the  yet  extant  minor  poems  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
possess  much  excellence ;  and  the  lays  which  Alfred  conde- 
scended to  learn  and  sing  could  not  have  been  absolutely  without 
merit.  I  do  not  know  that  any  Anglo-Saxon  songs  have  been 
preserved  which  bear  much  resemblance,  to  the  English  ballad, 
nor  could  this  branch  of  poetical  composition  have  originated 
in  long  poems  like  Beowulf,  or  the  story  of  Brut,  or  the  later 
romance  of  Alexander ;  for  the  ballad  properly  turns  on  biogra- 


14  POPULAR  POETRY  Lect.  L 

phical  incidents,  not  mythical  or  historical  events,  and  is  there- 
fore radically  different  from  these  works,  both  in  conception  and 
in  form.  There  are  popular  poems  belonging  to  the  youth, 
not  the  infancy,  of  English  literature,  which  stand  out  so  pro- 
minently from  the  lighter  poetry  of  their  time,  and  seem  so 
completely  to  have  anticipated  the  tone  of  later  centuries,  that 
we  know  not  how  to  account  for  their  appearance.  The  an- 
tiquity of  these  is  certain  ;  and  we  cannot  but  suspect  that  they 
are  fragmentary  remains  of  a  body  of  certainly  not  Saxon,  but 
early  English  poetry,  of  which  most  of  the  known  ballad,  and 
other  popular  literature  of  England,  would  give  us  no  idea. 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  them  are  the  well-known  ana- 
creontic, called  by  Warton  '  a  drinking-ballad,'  though  not  tech- 
nically a  ballad,  first  printed  in  Gammer  Grurton's  Needle,  in 
1575  — but  of  which  there  are  manuscript  copies  much  older  in 
date — and  the  poetical  dialogue.  The  Nut-brown  Maid,  which 
first  appeared  in  that  strange  medley,  Arnold's  Chronicle, 
printed  in  1521.  Were  these  compositions  now  to  be  judged 
upon  internal  evidence,  and  by  comparison  with  other  English 
poetry  of  their  time  and  class,  they  would  be  unhesitatingly 
pronounced  clever  literary  impostures,  of  a  much  later  date; 
but  their  genuineness  is  not  open  to  question. 

Although  much  of  Saxon  as  well  as  of  old  English  prose  and 
verse  has  perished,  there  still  remains  enough  of  the  latter,  if 
not  to  enable  us  to  form  a  complete  estimate  of  the  intellectual 
products,  popular  and  scholastic,  of  the  transition  period,  yet  at 
least  to  disclose  the  primitive  form  of  nearly  every  branch  of 
English  literature  which  has  flourished  in  later  ages. 

In  discussing  the  subject  before  us,  I  shall  endeavour  to  draw 
the  attention  of  my  hearers  rather  to  the  literary  adaptations 
and  capacities  of  the  English  language  than  to  the  peculiarities 
of  its  grammar.  I  adopt  this  method  partly  because  the  mi- 
nutite  of  inflectional  and  syntactical  structure  cannot,  without 
much  difficulty,  be  made  clearly  intelligible  to  the  ear;  partly 
because,  in  the  want  of  accessible  material  for  study  and  com- 


Lect.  I.  THE   ROMANCE   LANGUAGES  15 

parison,  there  are  many  important  questions  of  grammatical 
history  upon  which  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  arrive  at  definite 
conclusions;  and  the  mere  suggestion  of  conjectural  theories, 
unsupported  by  probable  evidence,  would  tend  only  to  mislead 
and  embarrass. 

The  Eomance  languages  are  much  more  homogeneous  in  con- 
struction than  the  English ;  they  are  all  derived,  by  more  or 
less  direct  processes,  from  one  and  the  same  ancient  tongue,  or, 
rather,  group  of  nearly  related  dialects,  and  they  so  far  conform, 
in  their  grammatical  structure,  to  the  Latin,  the  common  repre- 
sentative of  them  all,  and  to  each  other,  that  the  means  of 
illustrating  their  forms  by  comparison  and  analogy  are  very 
abundant.  If  there  be  a  hiatus  in  the  table  of  descent  in  one 
of  these  languages,  it  may  generally  be  supplied  from  the  gene- 
alogy of  another,  and  hence  there  are  comparatively  few  points 
in  their  etymology,  or  in  their  early  history,  which  are  either 
wholly  unexplained,  or  which  stand  as  anomalous,  unrelated 
philological  facts.*  Another  circumstance  has  contributed  to 
save  their  grammar  from  much  of  the  confusion  and  obscurity 
in  which,  as  we  shall  see,  the  inflectional  and  syntactical  system 
of  early  English  is  involved.  The  Latin  was  the  only  Italic 
dialect  known  to  the  Middle  Ages  which  possessed  an  alphabetic 
system ;  and  the  new  popular  speeches,  when  first  reduced  to 
writing,  naturally  conformed  in  their  leading  features  to  the 
orthography  of  that  language,  which  still  remained  a  living 
tongue  among  the  clergy  of  the  one  only  organised  branch  of 
the  visible  Church  in  Western  Europe  —  one  might  almost  add, 
among  the  common  people  of  Italy  —  and  furnished  at  once  a 
model  and  a  standard  of  comparison  for  the  expression  of  vocal 
sounds  by  written  characters  in  all  the  Eomance  family.f   Hence, 

*  See  Illustration  IV.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

t  The  student  will  find  in  Fauriel,  '  Dante,  et  les  origines  de  la  Langue  et  de  la 
Litterature  Italiennes,'  much  interesting  information  on  the  extensive  use  of  the 
Latin  language  in  Italy  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Not 
oiily  was  popular  preaching  in  Latin  common  in  that  country  in  the  last-mentioned 
century,  but  Dante  was  expounded  to  the  people  in  that  language. 


16  THB  ROMANCE   LANGUAGES  Lect.  L 

although  manuscripts  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  those  dialects  are 
sufficiently  discrepant  in  their  orthography  to  create  occasional 
embarrassment,  yet,  in  the  notation  of  the  inflectional  syllables 
in  any  one  of  them,  there  is  not  the  same  wide  range  of  varia- 
tion as  in  early  English,  where,  from  the  want  of  a  general 
authoritative  standard,  orthography  fluctuated,  following  now 
Grothic  and  now  Eomance  precedent,  with  an  uncertainty  which 
conspired  with  great  irregularity  in  the  use  of  the  inflections 
themselves,  to  produce  an  irreconcilable  diversity.  For  these 
reasons  it  has  been  found  practicable  to  construct,  for  the 
successive  periods  in  the  philological  history  of  the  different 
Eomance  dialects,  accidences  and  rules  of  concord  and  regimen, 
which  probably  approach  almost  as  nearly  to  accuracy  as  the 
dialects  themselves  approached  to  uniformity  in  use.  But  with 
all  these  advantages,  the  precise  knowledge  of  the  primitive 
grammar  of  the  Romance  languages  has  advanced  slowly,  and  it 
is  scarcely  a  generation  since  Eaynouard  discovered  even  so 
simple  a  thing  as  the  difference  between  the  plural  and  singular 
form  of  the  noun  in  the  dialect  of  Northern  France. 

For  a  variety  of  reasons,  both  the  facilities  and  the  induce- 
ments for  the  study  of  early  English  grammar  have  been  fewer 
and  less  effectual  than  for  corresponding  researches  in  France 
and  other  Continental  countries ;  and  when  we  take  into  account 
also  the  greater  inherent  difficulties  of  the  subject,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  thus  far  there  is  not  a  general  agreement  of  scholars 
on  many  cardinal  points  of  early  English  inflection,  and  indeed 
that  no  thorough,  systematic  and  comprehensive  attempt  at  the 
investigation  of  these  questions  has  yet  been  made.*  The 
serious  study  of  English  has  but  just  begun,  and  it  is  not  a 

*  I  ought  here  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the  remarkable  *  Wissen- 
schaftliche  Grammatik  der  Englisehen  Sprache '  of  Fiedler  and  the  valuable  con- 
tinuation of  it  by  Sachs,  neither  of  which  became  known  to  me  until  after  this 
volume  was  ready  for  the  press.  They  are,  however,  unsatisfactory,  not  so  much 
from  want  of  philological  acumen,  as  because  they  are  founded  on  a  too  limited 
range  of  early  authorities,  and  because  they  do  not  trace,  with  sufficient  distinct- 
ness, the  historical  development  of  the  language. 


Lect.  I.  GOOD   EDITIONS   WANTED  17 

generation  since  sound  linguistic  philosophy  was  first  brought 
to  bear  actively  and  effectively  upon  it.  The  method  of  this 
study  Anglican  scholars  have  learned  from  German  teachers, 
and,  from  the  natural  inclination  of  the  pupil  to  tread  in  the 
steps  of  his  master,  there  is  a  strong  tendency  now,  while  the 
facts  of  English  philological  history  are  yet  but  imperfectly 
known,  to  place  the  theory  of  English  grammar  on  the  same 
advanced  footing  as  that  of  the  German,  the  early  stages  of  which 
have  been  far  more  thoroughly  investigated. 

The  great  mass  of  scholars  otherwise  competent  to  enter  on 
such  speculations  have  at  present  the  means  of  using  but  a  part 
of  the  material  which  is  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  esta- 
blishment of  general  conclusions.  Manuscripts  are  accessible  to 
comparatively  few,  and  accurately  printed  editions  of  old  authors 
are  not  yet  numerous  enough  to  furnish  the  necessary  data. 
We  have  admirable  editions  of  Layamon  and  the  Ormulum,  as 
well  as  of  some  less  conspicuous  literary  monuments  not  widely 
distant  in  date  from  those  works.  We  possess  the  Wycliffite 
versions,  also,  in  an  extremely  satisfactory  form.,  but  very  few 
other  English  authors  of  the  fourteenth  century  exist  in  editions 
which  at  all  meet  the  demands  of  critical  scholarship.  Chaucer 
is,  both  for  literary  and  for  grammatical  purposes,  the  most  im- 
portant source  of  information  respecting  the  vigorous  youth  of 
the  English  tongue,  but  —  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Wright's  Canterbury  Tales,  founded  almost  entirely  on  a 
single  manuscript  —  we  have,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  edition 
of  any  of  the  works  of  that  great  author  which  is  worthy  of 
confidence  as  an  exhibition  of  the  grammatical  system,  I  will 
not  say  of  Chaucer  himself,  but  even  of  any  one  of  the  scribes 
who  have  copied  his  writings.  No  competent  scholar  has  yet 
subjected  the  manuscripts  of  Chaucer  to  a  critical  examination 
and  comparison ;  and  hence  we  cannot  pretend  to  pronounce 
with  certainty  upon  what  is  a  very  important,  and  would  seem 
beforehand  a  very  obvious  matter,  the  precise  extent,  namely,  to 

0 


18  IRREGUL^iEITY   OF   EARLY  ENGLISH  Lect.  L 

which,  in  that  author's  works,  the  syntactical  relations  of  words 
are  determined  by  inflection.* 

Only  a  single  English  work  of  the  thirteenth  century  has  been 
brought  within  our  reach  in  such  a  form  as  to  authorise  us  to 
speak  positively  upon  the  syntactical  system  which  the  author 
Ibllowed.  This  is  the  Ormulum,  of  which,  fortunately,  but  a 
single  manuscript,  apparently  the  original  itself,  is  known.  But 
the  value  of  this  otherwise  most  important  philological  monu- 
ment is  much  diminished  by  the  uncertainty  of  its  date  and  of 
the  locality  of  its  dialect,  and  by  the  fact  that  there  does  not 
exist,  at  least  in  print,  enough  literary  material  of  its  own  pro- 
bable period  to  serve  as  a  test  by  which  its  conformity  to  the 
general  contemporary  usage  of  the  language  can  be  tried,  or  to 
which  it  can  itself  be  applied  as  a  standard  of  comparison. 

But  in  all  inquiries  into  the  grammatical  history  of  early 
English,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  such  was  the  dialectic 
confusion,  and  such  the  irregularity  of  orthography,  that  we  are 
not  warranted  in  affirming  of  scarcely  any  one  form,  or  any  one 
spelling,  that  it  was  normal  for  its  time.  It  is  as  true  of  ortho- 
graphy and  grammar  as  of  literary  form,  that  there  is  no  unity 
until  great  authors  arise  and  become  generally  recognised  as 
authoritative  standards.  The  founders  of  a  national  literature, 
therefore,  conform  not  to  previously  settled  and  acknowledged 
canons  of  national  speech,  for  none  such  exist,  but  to  some  par- 
ticular dialect,  or  they  perhaps  frame  a  more  or  less  eclectic 
diction,  and  by  their  authority  establish  a  grammar,  first  for 

*  I  think  no  man  who  has  made  Chaucer  a  study  can  doubt  that  he  had  an 
orthograpliical,  a  grammatical,  and  a  prosodical  system,  though  we  have  not  yet 
succeeded  in  finding  the  key  to  them.  Besides  the  very  strong  internal  evidence 
of  his  works,  we  have,  in  his  address  to  Adam,  scrivener,  and  in  Troilus  and 
Creseide,  Book  "V,  v.  1804 — 7,  direct  testimony  to  a  solicitude  for  the  careful 
copying  of  his  manuscripts,  which  proves  that  he  by  no  means  wrote  at  random. 

What  is  wanted  is  not  a  made-up  text  of  Chaucer,  conjectural  or  eclectic,  but  a 
literal  reproduction  of  one  or  more  of  the  best  manuscripts,  with  various  readings 
from  all  the  others  which  have  any  pretensions  to  authority, —  in  short,  an  edition 
conducted  on  the  same  principles  as  the  noble  Wycliffite  versions  by  Forshall  and 
Madden. 


Lect.  I.  GERMAN   DIALECTS  19 

their  literary  followers,  and,  after  some  time,  for  the  nation. 
No  full  and  comprehensive  general  work  on  English  dialecto- 
logy, ancient  or  modern,  has  yet  appeared.  Very  confident 
opinions,  indeed,  are  pronounced  with  respect  to  early  English 
dialects  and  their  relation  to  modern  local  patois,  but  certainly 
very  many  of  these  find  no  sufficient  support  in  the  printed  evi- 
dence on  the  subject ;  and  if  we  are  yet  authorised  to  draw  any 
conclusion,  it  is  that  the  diversities  were  too  numerous  to  admit 
of  being  grouped  or  classified  at  all,  with  any  precision  of  chro- 
nological or  geographical  limitation. 

Grerman  must  be  considered  to  have  been  a  written  language, 
and  to  have  possessed  a  literature  much  earlier  than  our  com- 
posite English.  The  Nibelungen-Lied  in  its  recorded  form 
is  placed  at  about  the  year  1200,  and  there  were  numerous 
written  compositions  between  that  period  and  the  year  1300,  in 
different  Grerman  dialects,  and  of  a  character  likely  to  be,  and 
which  we  know  actually  to  have  been,  widely  circulated.  Now 
the  tendency  of  a  popular  written  literature  is  to  harmonise  the 
discordances  of  language,  and  we  have  sufficient  evidence  that, 
for  many  centuries,  the  dialects  have  been  dying  out,  and  that 
Grerman  has  been  both  spoken  and  written  with  constantly  in- 
creasing uniformity ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  we  find  in 
Firmenich's  collection  examples  of  some  hundreds  of  Germanic 
dialects  alleged  to  be  actually  spoken  at  the  present  day,  and 
Stalder  has  given  us  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  in  forty- 
two  German  and  twenty-seven  Eomance  patois  employed  in 
Switzerland  alone.  In  all  this,  no  doubt,  there  is  an  enormous 
exaggeration,  which  has  been  produced  by  giving  a  phonographic 
spelling  of  the  colloquial  pronunciation  of  words  really  the  same 
almost  everywhere,  and  differenced  in  form  only  as  any  two 
speakers  would  vary  in  uttering,  and  any  two  listeners  in  pho- 
nographically  recording  them.  There  are  shades  of  difference 
in  the  articulation  of  almost  any  two  members  of  the  same 
family,  brother  and  sister,  husband  and  wife,  for  example,  and 
two  persons  often  differently  hear,  and  would  differently  express 

c  2 


20  LOCAL  DIALECTS  Lect.  I. 

in  alphabetical  characters,  the  pronunciation  of  the  same  indi- 
vidual. If  a  half-hour's  conversation  in  one  of  the  most  culti- 
vated circles  in  England  or  America  were  to  be  written  down  by- 
two  observers,  from  the  ear,  and  without  regard  to  the  conven- 
tional orthography  of  the  words  employed,  we  should  have,  not 
simply  a  dialect  which  to  the  eye  would  vary  widely  from  that 
of  books,  but  the  two  reporters  would  give  us  two  dialects  vary- 
ing almost  as  much  from  each  other  as  either  from  the  standard 
orthography ;  besides  which,  each  of  the  speakers  would  appear 
to  have  his  own  subordinate  patois.  Hence,  most  of  this  alleged 
diversity  of  dialect  is  imaginary,  subjective  in  the  listener,  or 
accidental  in  the  speaker,  and  the  well-trained  ear  of  a  single 
person  would  find  no  such  extent  of  constant  difference  as  the 
printed  collections  would  lead  us  to  suppose. 

Until,  however,  the  smaller  states  and  communities  of  mediae- 
val Europe  were  absorbed  into  the  larger  political  organizations, 
and  until  national  literatures  had  been  created,  and  a  greater 
fixity  and  universality  given  to  linguistic  forms  by  the  invention 
of  printing,  the  real  local  differences  of  speech  were  constantly 
augmenting,  but  in  more  recent  periods,  the  written  and  printed 
page,  the  frequent  reference  to  acknowledged  standards  of  gram- 
mar and  orthography,  have  served  as  a  constant  corrective, 
which,  in  England  as  well  as  on  the  Continent,  is  always  bring- 
ing all  deviations  back  to  the  normal  form.*  In  the  thirteenth, 
and  until  near  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  centuries,  the  people 
of  England  had  no  such  standards,  and  the  actual  diversities  of 
dialect,  though  perhaps  less  numerous  and  important  than  the 
orthographical  differences  between  the  manuscripts  would  seem 
to  indicate,  were  nevertheless  probably  greater  than  they  are 
in  any  European  nation,  of  equal  numbers,  at  the  present  day. 

From  all  this  it  will  be  evident  that  whatever  may  be  the 
value  of  a  precise  historical  knowledge  of  primitive  English 
grammar  and  literature  in  all  their  manifestations,  such  know- 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXI.,  p.  453  and  following  pages. 


Lect.  I.  ENGLISH  GRAMMAR  PECULIAR  21 

ledge  is  not  attainable  at  this  time,  and  with  such  means  as  are 
accessible  to  American,  and,  generally,  English  scholars ;  and 
an  attempt  to  present  to  you  anything  more  than  an  approxi- 
mate estimate  of  their  peculiarities  ^^ould  be  but  a  piece  of 
charlatanism,  alike  discreditable  to  the  speaker  and  unprofitable 
to  the  audience. 

But  there  is  a  further  difficulty.  The  Anglo-Saxon  and  the 
Norman-French,  from  the  union  of  which  the  English  is  chiefly 
derived,  wel-e  inflected  languages,  and  had  the  syntactical 
peculiarities  common  to  most  grammars  with  inflections ;  but 
in  the  friction  between  the  two,  the  variable  and  more  loosely 
attached  growths  of  both  were  rubbed  off,  and  the  speech  of 
England,  in  becoming  stamped  as  distinctively  English,  dropped 
so  many  native,  and  supplied  their  place  with  so  few  borrowed, 
verbal  and  nominal  endings,  that  it  ceased  to  belong  to  the 
inflected  class  of  tongues,  and  adopted  a  grammar,  founded  in  a 
considerable  degree  upon  principles  which  characterise  that  of 
neither  of  the  parent  stocks  from  which  it  is  derived.  It  is 
altogether  a  new  philological  individual,  distinct  in  linguistic 
character  from  all  other  European  speeches,  and  not  theore- 
tically to  be  assimilated  to  them. 

But  the  difference  between  English  and  the  Continental 
languages  does  not  consist  in  the  greater  or  less  amount  of 
inflection  alone.  The  Danish,  with  the  remarkable  exceptions 
of  the  passive  verb  and  the  coalescent  definite  form  of  the 
noun,  is  almost  as  simple  as  English  in  this  respect,  but  it  is 
descended  from  an  inflected  tongue,  with  little  mixture  except 
from  the  Grerman,  which  belongs  also  to  the  Gothic  stock,  and 
has  most  of  the  same  syntactical  peculiarities  as  the  Old- 
Northern,  a  local  dialect  of  which  is  the  more  immediate  parent 
of  the  Danish.  Danish,  then,  is  the  product  of  two  cognate 
languages,  minus  a  certain  number  of  inflections,  not,  indeed, 
strictly  common  to  both,  but  represented  in  both.  But  English 
stands  in  no  such  relation  to  its  Grothic  and  Romance  sources. 
The  Danish  is  an  intimate  mixture  of  substances  much  alike  in 


22  CONTINENTAL  GRAMMAR  LscT.  L 

their  elementary  character,  and  it  is  often  impossible  to  say  from 
which  of  its  two  constituents  particular  linguistic  features  have 
been  derived.  English  is  a  patchwork  of  two,  or  rather,  three 
tissues,  dissimilar  in  material  as  well  as  in  form,  and  to  a  distant 
observer  has  a  prevailing  hue  very  different  from  that  of  either 
of  them,  though,  upon  a  nearer  approach,  the  special  colour  and 
texture  of  each  web  is  discernible.* 

The  general  and  obvious  distinction  between  the  grammar  of 
the  English  and  that  of  the  Continental  tongues  is,  that  whereas 
in  the  latter  the  relations  of  words  are  determined  by  their 
form,  or  by  a  traditional  structure  of  period  handed  down  from 
a  more  strictly  inflectional  phase  of  those  languages,  in  English, 
on  the  other  hand,  those  relations  do  not  indicate,  but  are 
deduced  from,  the  logical  categories  of  the  words  which  compose 
the  period,  and  hence  they  must  be  demonstrated  by  a  very 
different  process  from  that  which  is  appropriate  for  syntaxes 
depending  on  other  principles.f  A  truly  philosophical  system 
of  English  syntax  cannot,  then,  be  built  up  by  means  of  the 
Latin  scaffolding,  which  has  served  for  the  construction  of  all 
the  Continental  theories  of  grammar,  and  with  which  alone  the 
literary  public  is  familiar,  but  must  be  conceived  and  executed 
on  a  wholly  new  and  original  plan. 

The  Continental  method  of  grammatical  demonstration  is  un- 
Kuited  to  the  philosophy  of  the  English  speech,  because  it  subor- 
dinates syntax  to  inflection,  the  logical  to  the  formal.  We  may 
regard  syntax,  the  analysis  of  the  period  or  the  synthesis  of  its  ele- 
ments, in  two  different  aspects :  as  an  assemblage  of  rules  for 
determining  the  agreement  and  government  of  words  by  corre- 
spondence of  form,  or  as  a  theory  of  the  structure  of  sentences 
founded  upon  the  logical  relations  of  words,  without  special  con- 
sideration of  their  forms.  The  first,  or  more  material  and  mechani- 
cal view  belongs  especially  to  highly  inflected  languages,  as  to  the 
Latin,  for  example,  and  in  a  less  degree  to  the  Grerman;  the  latter, 

*  See,  on  Frencli  and  Latin  constructions  in  English,  Lecture  II. 
t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XVL,  p.  347. 


I<ECT.  I.  FKENCH   GRAMMAR  23 

or  more  intellectual,  to  those  whose  words  are  invariable,  or  nearly 
so,  as  the  English.  English  grammar  is  not  to  be  taught  by 
tables  of  paradigms  and  rules  of  concord  and  regimen,  and  we 
must  either,  as  we  do  with  young  children,  treat  syntax  as  a 
collection  of  arbitrary  models  for  the  arrangement  of  words  in 
periods,  which  are  to  be  learned  by  rote,  and  followed  afterwards 
as  unreflectingly  as  the  processes  of  a  handicraft,  or  we  must 
consider  the  construction  of  the  sentence  a  logical  problem,  to 
be  solved  by  an  almost  purely  intellectual  calculus,  and  with 
very  few  of  the  mechanical  facilities  which  simplify,  if  they  do 
not  lighten,  grammatical  study  in  most  other  tongues. 

The  French  presojits  the  curious  phenomenon  of  a  language 
inflected  in  its  written  forms,  but  for  the  most  part  uninflected 
in  actual  speech,  and  hence  its  syntax  is  mixed ;  but  still  the 
word  has  been  mightier  than  the  letter,  in  so  far  that  it  has 
imposed  upon  even  the  written  dialect  a  structure  of  period  in 
some  degree  approximating  to  that  of  languages  whose  words 
are  unchangeable  in  form.*  But  grammarians  think  in  the 
language  of  books,  and  all  oral  departures  from  that  dialect  are, 
with  them,  anomalies  or  corruptions  not  entitled  to  a  place  in  a 
philosophical  view  of  speech. 

Hence  there  exists  no  grammar  of  spoken  French,  and  the 
theorists  of  that  nation  persist  in  regarding  wha,t  are  really 

^  This  distinction  between  oral  and  written  French  is  important  to  be  kept  in 
mind  in  all  inquiries  into  the  influence  of  Norman-French  on  English  syntax 
There  is  indeed  much  uncertainty  as  to  the  pronunciation  of  Norman-French  at 
and  for  some  centuries  after  the  Conquest,  but  various  circumstances  render  it 
probable  that  there  was,  at  that  period,  almost  as  great  a  discrepancy  between  ^he 
language  of  books  and  that  of  the  market,  in  all  the  dialects  of  Northern  France, 
as  there  is  at  the  present  day.  Written  French  had  its  special  influence  on 
English ;  but  the  spoken  tongue  of  the  Norman  immigrants  was  undoubtedly  a 
much  more  important  agent  in  modifying  the  language  of  England.  See  First 
Series,  Lecture  XXI.,  and  the  works  of  Palsgraye  and  Genin  there  referred  to. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  Anglo-Saxon  also  had  not  only  its  local  dialects,  but 
its  general  colloquial  forms,  which,  in  all  probability,  differed  very  widely  from  the 
written  tongue.  Anglo-Saxon  English  is  derived  not  wholly  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  of  books,  which  alone  is  known  to  us,  but  in  a  great  measure,  no  doubt, 
from  a  spoken  tongue  that  has  now  utterly  perished,  except  so  far  as  it  has  lived 
on,  first  in  the  mouths  and  then  in  the  literatm-e,  of  the  modern  English  people. 


24  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGE  Lect.  I. 

syntactical  differences  between  their  two  dialects  as  mere  ques- 
tions of  pronunciation.  The  French  of  the  grammarians  is  an 
inflected,  and  properly  a  dead  language  *,  the  Grerman  inflected 
but  living,  and  the  signification  of  the  period  is  controlled  by 
the  inflections  in  both.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  the  philolo- 
gists of  those  nations  should,  in  their  grammatical  inquiries,  be 
specially  attracted  by  the  variable  portion,  the  inflectional 
characteristics  of  words,  and  should  less  regard  the  logical 
relations  which  may,  and  in  English  do  exist  almost  indepen- 
dently of  form.  However  learned  Continental  scholars  may  be 
in  the  literature,  the  concrete  philology  of  tongues  foreign  to 
their  own,  they  have,  in  their  grammatical  speculations  on  those 
tongues,  until  recently,  rather  neglected  syntax,  except  so  far  as 
it  necessarily  connects  itself  with  correspondence  of  endings.t 

The  ultimate  objects  of  the  present  course  are  philological,  not 
linguistic.  I  shall  therefore  make  the  presentation  of  gram- 
matical facts  and  theories  always  subordinate  to  the  elucidation 
of  the  literary  products  and  capacities  of  the  English  speech,  and, 
so  far  as  the  grammar  is  concerned,  I  shall  attempt  little  beyond 
a  general  view  of  the  processes  —  loss  and  gain  of  inflections, 
and  changes  in  the  arrangement  of  words  —  by  which  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  syntactical  period  has  been  converted  into  an  English 
one. 

I  have  already  urged  what  seem  to  me  sufficient  reasons  for 
adopting  this  method,  but  were  these  grounds  wanting,  I  should 


*  The  theoretical  supremacy  of  the  alphabetical,  written,  over  the  oral  tongue  of 
France  is  remarkably  exemplified  in  the  laws  of  verse,  for  coupled  endings  in 
French  poetry  must,  in  general,  rhyme  to  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear.  Thus,  for 
example,  the  feminine  possessive  pronoun,  or  its  homonym  the  first  and  third 
person  singular  present  subjunctive,  tienne,  cannot  be  rhymed  with  the  plural 
verb  viennent,  nor  is  mien  a  good  rhyme  to  liens,  though  the  consonance  in 
both  cases  is  unimpeachable, 

t  Burguy's  grammar  of  the  Langue  d'Oil,  though  exceedingly  full  upon  the 
forms  of  individual  words,  is  altogether  silent  tipon  syntax,  except  in  the  mere 
matter  of  concord.  Eask's  numerous  grammars  pursue  much  the  same  method, 
but  Diez,  Grammatik  der  Eomanischen  Sprachen,  and  other  late  German  philo- 
logists, are  much  more  complete  on  this  point. 


Lect.  I.  LINGUISTIC   STUDIES  25 

find  others  not  less  satisfactory  in  the  opinion  I  entertain  that 
the  study  of  language  is,  in  this  country  at  least,  taking  too 
generally  a  wrong  direction. 

What  is  properly  called  philology,  that  is,  the  study  of  lan- 
guages in  connection  with,  and  as  a  means  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  literature,  the  history,  the  whole  moral  and  intellectual  action 
of  different  peoples,  is  much  neglected  by  American  scholars,  and 
a  professedly  profound,  but  really  most  superficial  research  into 
linguistic  analogies  and  ethnological  relations  is  substituted 
instead.  The  modern  science  of  linguistics,  or  comparative 
grammar  and  etymology,  requires  for  its  successful  pursuit  a 
command  of  facilities,  and  above  all  a  previous  discipline,  which, 
in  the  United  States,  is  within  the  reach  of  but  a  small  propor- 
tion of  men  disposed  to  literary  occupations,  and  hence  for  the 
present  it  must  be  the  vocation  of  a  few,  not  a  part  of  the  general 
education  of  the  many.  American  scholars  seldom  possess  the 
elementary  grammatical  training  which  is  the  first  requisite  to 
success  in  the  study  I  am  speaking  of,  and  it  is  a  very  gross 
and  a  very  prevalent  error  to  suppose  that  this  training  can  be 
acquired  by  the  perusal  of  theoretical  treatises,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  it  is  possible  to  become  a  linguist  without  first  being 
a  philologist.  The  best,  indeed  the  only  means  we  at  present 
possess  of  imbuing  ourselves  with  the  necessary  preparatory 
attainment  is,  a  thorough  mastery  both  of  the  forms  and  of  the 
practical  synthesis  of  the  words  which  compose  the  languages  of 
Greece  and  Eome,  and  are  organically  combined  in  their  lite- 
ratures. This  attainment  at  once  involves  a  discipline  fitting  us 
for  linguistic  investigation,  and  provides  us  with  a  standard  of 
comparison  by  which  to  measure  and  test  the  peculiarities  of  other 
tongues.  Now,  though  forms  may  be  taught  by  tables  of  stems 
and  endings,  yet  combinations  cannot,  and  the  mastery  we  speak 
of  is  not  to  be  attained  by  conning  grammars  and  consulting 
dictionaries.  It  must  be  the  product  of  two  factors,  a  rote- 
knowledge  of  paradigms  and  definitions,  and  a  long  and  familiar 
converse  with  the  intellect  of  classic  antiquity  as  it  still  lives  and 


26  LINGUISTIC   STUDIES  Lect.  I. 

moves  in  the  extant  literary  remains  of  Greece  and  Rome.  We 
must  know  words  not  as  abstract  grammatical  and  logical  quan- 
tities, but  as  animated  and  social  beings.  Roots,  inflections, 
word-book  definitions,  are  products  of  the  decomposition  of 
speech,  not  speech  itself.  They  are  dead  remains,  stripped  of 
their  native  attachments  and  functions,  and  hence  it  is  that  a 
living  Danish  scholar,  himself  a  man  of  rare  philological  attain- 
ment and  of  keen  linguistic  perceptions,  calls  scholastic  grammar 
'the  grave  of  language.'*  Had  the  founder  of  comparative 
anatomy  contented  himself  with  the  examination  of  the  osseous 
remains  of  dead  animals  alone,  his  science  would  have  died,  and 
deserved  to  die,  with  him;  but  it  was  his  knowledge  of  par- 
ticular skeletons  as  the  framework  of  living  organisms  that 
enabled  him  to  divine  and  reconstruct  the  muscles,  and 
veins,  and  fleshy  tissues,  and  integuments  that  once  made  the 
bones  of  Montmartre  breathing  and  moving  beings.  Indi- 
vidually, words  have  no  inherent  force,  inflected  forms  no  sig- 
nificance, and  they  become  organic  and  expressive  only  when 
they  are  united  in  certain  combinations,  according  to  their  special 
affinities,  and  inspired  with  life  by  the  breath  of  man.  The 
study  of  forms  and  of  the  primary  or  abstract  meaning  of  words 
must  go  hand  in  hand  with  wide  observation  of  those  forms  and 
of  the  plastic  modification  and.  development  of  the  signification 
of  words,  as  exemplified  in  the  living  movement  of  actual  speech 
or  literature,  and  no  amount  of  grammatical  and  lexical  know- 
ledge is  a  substitute  for  the  fruits  of  such  observation.  A  scholar 
might  know  by  rote  every  paradigm  and  every  syntactical  rule 
in  the  completest  Greek  grammars,  every  definition  in  the  most 
voluminous  Greek  lexicons,  and  yet  /airly  be  said  to  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  at  all.  In  short,  a  student  of 
Greek,  possessed  of  these  elements  only,  is  just  in  the  position 
of  an  arithmetical  pupil  who  has  learned  the  forms,  names,  and 
abstract  values  of  the  Arabic  numerals  and  the  theory  of  the 
decimal  notation ;  that  is,  he  is  barely  prepared  to  begin  the  real 
*  N.  F.  S.  Grundtvig,  Verdens  Historie,  I.  iv. 


Lect.  I.  CAUSATIVE   SPECULATION  27 

study  of  his  subject.  Inherently,  his  attainments  are  worth 
nothing,  and  it  is  only  by  practical  familiarity  with  numerical 
combinations  that  they  acquire  real  significance.* 

The  want  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  language  as  a  vehicle 
of  literature  and  of  actual  speech  is  painfully  manifested  in  much 
of  the  philological,  and  especially  etymological,  discussion  of  our 
time  and  country.  We  have  bold  ethnological  theories  founded 
on  alleged  linguistic  affinities,  comprehensive  speculations  on 
the  inherent  significance  of  radical  combinations,  and  confident 
phonological  systems,  propounded  by  writers  who  are  unable  to 
construe  a  page,  or  properly  articulate  the  shortest  phrase  in  any 
language  but  their  own.  f  Nor  is  this  theoretical  dreaming  by 
any  means  confined  to  the  scholarship  of  the  United  States.  A 
rage  for  causative  speculation  is  characteristic  of  the  philosophy 
of  the  day.  Vast  as  is  the  accumulation  of  facts  in  every  branch 
of  human  knowledge,  the  multiplication  of  theories  has  been 
still  more  rapid,  and  even  in  Grermany,  where  the  unflagging 
industry  of  Teutonic  research  is  heaping  up  such  immense 
stores  of  real  knowledge,  the  imaginative  and  the  constructive 
faculties  are  yet  more  active  than  the  acquisitive.  A  Grerman 
inquirer,  indeed,  does  not  pause  until  he  has  amassed  all  the 
known  facts  belonging  to  or  bearing  upon  his  subject,  but  the 
want  of  sufficient  data,  where  the  necessary  elements  are  not  all 
attainable,  rarely  deters  him  from  advancing  a  theory.  However 
inadequate  his  observations  may  prove  to  warrant  final  conclusions, 
he  seldom  fails  to  give  the  rationale  of  the  recorded  phenomena, 
and  if  he  can  obtain  but  one  linguistic  fact,  he  turns  that  one 

*  See  Illustration  V.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

t  It  would  indeed  be  absurd  to  insist  that  a  linguist  can  never  be  competent  to 
compare  the  structure  of  languages  whose  literature  he  has  not  mastered,  but  he 
can  become  so  only  by  an  intimate  knowledge  of  not  the  grammar  alone,  but  the 
living  philology  of  several  tongxies  possessing  fully  developed  inflectional  systems. 
It  is  only  by  means  of  an  acquaintance  with  multifarious  literatures  in  combina- 
tion with  the  anatomy  of  their  vehicles,  that  scholars  are  able  to  rise  to  those 
philosophical  and  comprehensive  views  of  the  essential  character  of  language  and 
the  relations  of  languages  which  distinguish  the  writings  of  Max  Miiller  and 
some  other  linguists  of  the  Continental  schools. 


28  LINGUISTIC  THEORIES  Lect.  I. 

into  a  law,  or,  in  other  words,  generalises  it,  with  scarcely  less 
confidence  than  he  sums  up  the  results  of  a  million. 

Comparative  philology  is  in  its  infancy, — a  strong  and  vigorous 
infancy  indeed,  but  still,  in  its  tendencies  and  habits,  too  preco- 
cious. It  is  the  youngest  of  the  sciences.  Modern  inquirers 
have  collected  a  very  great  number  of  apparently  isolated 
philological  facts,  they  have  detected  multitudes  of  seeming, 
as  well  as  numerous  well-established  linguistic  analogies,  and 
they  have  found  harmony  and  resemblance  where,  until  lately, 
nothing  had  been  discovered  but  confusion  and  diversity.  But 
still  here,  as  everywhere  else,  speculation  is  much  in  advance  of 
knowledge,  and  many  of  the  hypotheses  which  are  sprouting 
like  mushrooms  to-day,  are  destined,  like  mushrooms,  to  pass 
away  to-morrow. 

The  too  exclusive  contemplation  of  isolated  forms  has  led  to 
the  adoption  of  many  linguistic  theories  which,  I  am  persuaded, 
will  not  stand  the  test  of  investigation,  conducted  with  wider 
knowledge  and  with  more  comprehensive  lights,  drawn,  not 
from  comparison  of  paradigms  alone,  but  from  the  whole  field 
of  social  and  literary  history.  It  is  maintained,  for  instance,  by 
a  class  of  linguists  who  insist  on  explaining  changes  in  language, 
not  by  facts  within  the  reach  of  actual  observation,  but  by  as- 
sumed inherent  laws  of  speech,  that  the  stage  of  development 
when  languages  form  inflections  belongs  wholly  to  the  ante-his- 
torical, I  might  almost  say,  the  fossil  ages ;  and  it  is  confidently 
asserted  that  no  new  inflections  now  are,  or,  within  the  period 
through  which  we  can  trace  the  history  of  language  by  its  monu- 
ments, ever  have  been,  constructed  in  any  human  tongue.  Yet 
every  Komance,  and  some  of  the  Gothic  dialects,  present  not  one 
only,  but  several  demonstrable,  recent  instances  of  the  formation 
of  new  coalescent  inflections,  precisely  analogous  in  force  to 
those  of  ancient  languages.* 

*  See  First  Series,  Lectures  XV.  and  XVI.  The  historical  evidences  of  a  ten- 
dency to  the  formation  of  new  coalescent  inflections  in  the  European  languages  in 
the  Middle  Ages  are,  I  believe,  more  numerous  in  the  Dutch  literature  of  the  thir 


Lttct.  I.  HASTY   ETYMOLOGIES  29 

In  like  manner,  the  general  reception  of  the  well-established 
theory  of  a  relationship  between  most  European  languages,  and 
their  common,  or  rather  parallel,  descent  from  an  Oriental 
source  or  sources,  has  given  birth  to  very  hasty  conclusions 
with  regard  to'  the  actual  biography  of  individual  vocables. 
Etymologists  incline  to  neglect  the  historical  method  of  deduc- 
tion in  their  inquiries,  and  to  refer  Grothic  and  Romance  words 
directly  to  any  Sanscrit,  Celtic,  or  Sclavonic  root  which  happens 
to  resemble  them,  instead  of  tracing,  in  literature  and  in  speech, 
the  true  route  by  which,  and  the  source  from  which,  they  have 
migrated  into  our  mother-tongue.*  The  former  is  the  least 
laborious  and  the  most  ambitious  method.     It  is  easier,  by  the 

teenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  than  in  any  other.  The  student  will  find  lists  of 
such  coalescences,  some  of  which  are  very  curious  and  instructive,  in  the  notes  to 
Floris  ende  Blancefloer,  in  Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben's  Horse  Belgicse,  Part  III. ; 
to  Caerl  ende  Elegast,  same  collection,  Part  IV, ;  to  Ferrgunt,  published  by  Viss- 
cher,  and  to  the  Leven  van  Sinte  Christina,  edited  by  Bormans,  &c.  The  in- 
clination of  children  to  conform  the  conjugation  of  the  English  verb,  in  all  cases, 
to  what  is  called  the  weak  (better,  the  regular)  method  of  inflection  is  fiimiliar  to 
every  observing  person.  There  was  a  similar  tendency  in  the  early  stages  of  some 
of  the  modern  Italian  dialects.  Biondelli,  'Poesie  Lombarde  Inedite,'  p.  108,  note, 
observes:  '  Volio  per  voile,  ci  e  nuova  prova  dello  sforzo  col  quale  ai  tempi  del 
Bescape  si  evitavano  tutte  le  irregolarita  nella  formazione  dei  tempi  passati  e  dei 
partecipj.  Possiamo  asserire,  che  le  regole  grammaticali  a  cio  destinate  erano 
senza  eccezione.'  These  departures  from  precedent  are  not,  indeed,  strictly  new 
inflections,  but  they  are  instances  of  the  operation  of  a  principle  which  might  lead 
to  new  inflections.  It  is  to  the  same  cause  that  wo  are  to  ascribe  the  completion 
of  the  conjugation  of  the  defective  Latin  verbs  in  modern  Italian.  The  associate 
verb.  Esse,  sum,  fui,  I  believe,  never  became  regular;  but  an  dare,  now  asso- 
ciate, was  originally  regularly  conjugated  in  Italian,  as  its  compounds  riandare, 
&c.,  are  still.  An  dare  is  indeed  not  classical  Latin,  but  it  belongs  to  an  early 
period  of  Romance  etymology. 

*  To  scholars  of  any  pretensions  to  sound  linguistic  learning,  this  train  of 
remark  is  certainly  superfluous  ;  but  when  we  find,  in  a  dictionary  which  popular 
favour  has  carried  through  seven  editions,  such  astonishing  absurdities  as  the 
Portuguese  etymologies  of  Constancio,  and  in  the  most  widely  circulated  of  En- 
glish dictionaries  such  speculations  as  those  of  "Webster  on  the  words  alleged  to 
be  cognate  with  the  Hebrew  barak,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  a  large  class  of 
book-buyers  and  book-makers  who  need  to  be  enlightened  in  regard  to  the  true 
principles  of  etymological  research.  See  Webster's  Dictionary,  Introduction,  p. 
xxxvi.,  and  etymology  of  preach,  s.  v.,  which,  as  well  as  the  cognate  words  of  the 
same  meaning  in  other  European  languages,  is  simply  the  Latin  prsedico,  but  is 
referred  by  "Webster  to  the  Hebrew  barak. 


30  UNSOUND   ETYMOLOGIES  Lect.  I. 

help  of  the  alphabetic  arrangement  of  vocabularies,  to  turn  over 
a  dozen  dictionaries,  and  gather  around  a  given  English  word  a 
group  of  foreign  roots  which  contain  more  or  fewer  of  the  same 
vocal  elements,  and  exhibit  a  greater  or  less  analogy  of  mean- 
ing, than  to  seek  the  actual  history  of  the  word  by  painful 
research  into  the  records  of  travel,  and  commerce,  and  political 
combination,  and  religious  propagandism,  and  immigration,  and 
conquest,  which  are  the  ordinary  means  of  the  dissemination  of 
words  ;  but  the  result  obtained  by  this  tedious  and  unostenta- 
tious method  are  of  far  greater  value,  and  far  deeper  philosophi- 
cal interest,  than  theories  which,  by  reversing  the  process,  found 
ethnological  descent,  and  build  the  whole  fabric  of  a  national 
history,  extending  through  ten  centuries,  on  the  Eoman  ortho- 
graphy of  a  single  proper  name  belonging  to  a  tongue  wholly 
unknown  to  the  Komans  themselves. 

In  fact,  undeniable  as  are  many  of  the  unexpected  results  of 
modern  linguistic  research,  the  mass  of  speculative  inquirers  are, 
under  different  circumstances,  going  beyond  the  extravagance 
of  the  etymologists  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Of  dead  or 
remote  languages  these  latter  knew  only  Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew, 
and  Arabic,  and  they  made  no  scruple  to  derive  any  modern 
word  directly  from  any  root,  in  any  of  these  tongues,  which  in 
the  least  resembles  it  in  form  and  signification,  without  at  all 
troubling  themselves  about  the  historical  probabilities  of  the 
case.  Modern  philologists  have  added  to  the  attainments  of 
their  predecessors  a  knowledge  of  the  vocabularies  of  the  San- 
scrit, and  Celtic,  and  Sclavonic,  not  to  speak  of  numerous  other 
dialects ;  and  not  only  are  the  root-cellars  of  all  these  considered 
as  lawful  plunder,  whenever  a  radical  is  wanted,  but,  in  the" 
lack  of  historical  evidence  to  show  a  connection  between  nations 
widely  separated  by  space  or  time,  the  coincidence  of  a  few 
words  or  syllables  is  held  to  be  sufficient  proof  of  blood-relation- 
ship. Hence  etymology  has  become  not  an  aid  in  historical 
investigation,  but  a  substitute  for  it.  A  shelf  of  dictionaries  is 
certainly  a  more  cheaply  wrought,  and  is  thought  a  richer  mine 


Lect.  I.  CONJECTCEAL   LINGUISTS  31 

of  ethnological  truth,  than  a  library  of  chronicles  or  a  maga- 
zine of  archives ;  and  the  most  positive  testimony  of  ancient 
annalists  is  overruled  upon  evidence  derived  from  the  comparison 
of  a  few  words,  the  very  existence  of  which,  in  the  forms  ascribed 
to  them,  is  often  a  matter  of  much  uncertainty.* 

The  conjectural  speculations  of  the  present  day  on  the  gene- 
ral tendencies  and  fundamental  laws  of  lancfuaoje  are  even  more 
doubtful  than  the  historical  deductions  from  supposed  philologi- 
cal facts.  We  cannot,  indeed,  assume  to  place  arbitrary  limits 
to  the  advance  of  any  branch  of  human  knowledge,  and  there  'is 
no  one  philological  truth  which  we  are  authorised  to  say  must 
for  ever  remain  an  ultimate  fact,  incapable  of  further  resolution 
or  explanation,  but  there  are  many  phenomena  in  speech 
which,  in  the  present  state  of  linguistic  science,  must  be  treated 
as  ultimate.  With  respect  to  these,  it  is  wise  to  forbear  attempts 
to  guess  out  their  hidden  meaning  and  analogies  until  we  shall 
discover  related  facts,  by  comparison  with  which  we  may  at 
length  be  able  safely  to  generalise. 

But  in  all  the  uncertainty  and  imperfection  of  our  knowledge 
on  the  subject  of  English  philology,  there  still  remains  enough 
of  positive  fact  to  lead  us  to  safe  conclusions  on  the  most  promi- 
nent phenomena  of  our  great  grammatical  and  lexical  revolu- 
tions ;  and  in  a  course  which,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  serve  to 
some  as  an  introduction  to  the  earnest  study,  if  not  of  the  in- 
flectional forms,  yet  of  the  spirit  of  early  English  literature, 
such  a  general  view  must  suffice. 

'"'  Contzen's  Wanderungen  der  Kelten  historisch-kritisch  dargelegt,  1861,  is  a 
remarkable  instance  of  pure  historical  investigation.  With  a  courage  and  in- 
industry  rare  even  in  Germany,  the  author,  to  use  his  own  words,  has  endeavoured 
'  an  der  Hand  der  Schriftsteller  des  Alterthums  Schritt  vor  Schritt  voranzugehen, 
und  den  das  Auge  einladenden  Weg  der  Etymologien  moglichst  zu  vermeiden,  und 
hat  iiberhaupt  den  aus  der  Sprache  geschopften  Belegen  nie  die  erste  Stelle  einge- 
raumt,  obwohl  er  die  hohe  Bedeutung  derselben,  zumal  da  wo  die  Alten  schweigen, 
nirgends  verkannt  hat.'  In  researches  so  conducted,  etymology  may  safely  be 
called  in  as  a  critical  help  in  estimating  the  weight  of  testimony  and  in  deter- 
mining questions  upon  which  the  historical  proofs  are  conflicting  or  suspicious ; 
but  it  is  a  hysteron-proteron  to  subordinate  the  positive  evidence  of  credible 
witnesses  to  linguistic  deduction. 


82  ENGLISH   PHILOLOGY  Lect.  L 

Among  the  many  ends  whicli  we  may  propose  to  ourselves  in  the 
study  of  language,  there  is  but  one  which  is  common  and  neces- 
sary to  every  man.  I  mean  such  a  facility  in  comprehending, 
and  such  a  skill  in  using,  his  mother-tongue,  that  he  can  play 
well  his  part  in  the  never-ceasing  dialogue  which,  whether  be- 
tween the  living  and  the  living  or  the  living  and  the  dead, 
whether  breathed  from  the  lips  or  figured  with  the  pen,  takes 
up  so  larg^  a  part  of  the  life  of  every  one  of  us.  For  this  pur- 
pose, the  information  I  shall  strive  to  communicate  will  be,  cer- 
tainly not  in  quantity,  but  in  kind,  sufficient ;  and  though  genius 
gifted  with  nice  linguistic  sense,  and  rare  demonstrative  powers, 
may  dispense  with  such  studies  as  I  am  advocating  and  illus- 
trating, I  believe  they  will  be  found  in  general  the  most  efficient 
helps  to  a  complete  mastery  of  the  English  tongue. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


I.  (p.  3.) 

CHANGES   IN   ENGLISH. 


I  AM  far  from  maintaining  that  the  language  of  England  has  at  any 
time  become  a  fixed  and  inflexible  thing.  In  the  adult  man,  physio- 
logical processes,  not  properly  constitutional  changes,  go  on  for  years 
before  decay  can  fairly  be  said  to  have  commenced.  His  organs, 
indeed,  when  he  passes  from  youth  to  manhood,  are  already  fully  de- 
veloped, but,  under  favourable  circumstances,  and  with  proper  training, 
they  continue  for  some  time  longer  to  acquire  additional  strength, 
power  of  action  and  of  resistance,  flexibility,  and,  one  might  almost  say, 
dexterity,  in  the  performance  of  their  appropriate  functions.  New 
organic  material  is  absorbed  and  assimilated,  and  effete  and  superfluous 
particles  are  thrown  oiF;  but  in  all  this  there  are  no  revolutions  analo- 
gous to  those  by  which  the  nursling  becomes  a  child,  the  child  a  man. 
So  in  languages  employed  as  the  medium  of  varied  literary  effort,  there 
is,  as  subjects  of  intellectual  discourse,  practical  applications  of  scien- 
tific principle,  and  new  conditions  of  social  and  material  life  multiply, 
an  increasing  pliancy  and  adaptability  of  speech,  a  constant  appropria- 
tion and  formation  of  new  vocables,  rejection  of  old  and  worn-out 
phrases,  and  revivification  of  asphyxiated  words,  a  rhetorical,  in  short, 
not  a  grammatical  change,  which,  to  the  superficial  observer,  may  give 
to  the  language  a  new  aspect,  while  it  yet  remains  substantially  the 
same. 

The  chief  accessions  to  the  English  vocabulary  since  the  time  of 
Shakespeare  have  been  in  the  departments  of  industrial  art  and  of 
mathematical,  physical,  and  linguistic  science.  They  merely  compose 
nomenclatures,  as  in  the  case  of  chemistry,  whose  new  terminology  — 
though  it  enables  us  to  speak  and  write  of  things,  the  existence  and 
properties  of  which  analysis  has  but  lately  revealed  to  us  —  has  not 
appreciably  affected  the  structure  of  the  English  tongue  or  the  laws  of 

D 


34  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lrcr.  I. 

its  movement.  In  the  dialect  of  imaginative  composition,  in  all  pure 
literature,  in  fact,  our  vocabulary  remains  in  the  main  unchanged, 
except,  indeed,  as  it  has  been  enriched  by  the  revival  of  expressive 
words  or  forms  which  had  unfortunately  been  suffered  to  become 
obsolete. 

11.  (p.  7.) 

TIIE   PAPACY. 

This  ascription  of  divine  authority  and  honours  to  the  Pope  is  of 
frequent  occurrence  both  in  the  Chronicle  of  Froissart,  who  was  an 
ecclesiastic,  and  in  the  writings  of  secular  Continental  authors  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Indeed,  it  was  so  well  understood  to  be  a  homage 
acceptable  to  the  Bishops  of  Eome,  that  even  Moslem  monarchs  appear 
to  have  used  it  in  the  complimentary  addresses  of  their  letters  to  the 
pontiff  when  they  had  a  favour  to  ask.  During  the  pontificate  of  Inno- 
cent VIII.,  a  son  of  Mohammed  the  Conqueror,  the  accomplished  Prince 
Djem,  or  Zizim,  as  he  was  often  called  in  Europe,  who  had  fled  from 
Turkey  afler  his  father's  death  to  escape  the  certain  doom  which  im- 
pended over  the  head  of  the  brothers  of  the  reigning  Sultan,  was 
inveigled  into  the  power  of  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Knights  of  Rhodes 
by  a  safe-conduct,  and  thrown  into  prison.  The  mother  and  sisters  of 
Djem  retired  to  Cairo,  and  asked  the  intercession  of  Abd-ul-Aziz, 
*  Soldan  of  Babilon,'  for  the  release  of  the  captive.  Abd-ul-Aziz  in- 
voked the  intervention  of  Pope  Innocent  VIII.  in  a  curious  epistle,  a 
translation  of  which  is  found  in  Arnold's  Chronicle,  reprint  of  1811, 
pp.  159,  IGO.  The  letter  is  addressed:  'Unto  the  most  holyest  and 
fauorablist  Price  in  erthe,  Vicary  and  Lieftenant  of  Cryst,  evermore 
during  Lord  Innocence  the  viii.,  .  .  .  extirpator  of  synners  .  .  .  the 
stede  of  God  vsing  in  erthe ; '  and  elsewhere  in  the  letter  the  pope  is 
styled  *  as  in  a  maner  a  God  i  erthe,  and  the  sacred  brethe  of  Ciyst.' 

The  subsequent  details  of  this  affair  are  worth  adding,  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  somewhat  unfamiliar  history  of  the  times.  Djem  was  sur- 
rendered by  the  Grand  Master  to  Innocent  VIII.,  and  kept  under 
surveillance  during  the  life  of  that  pontiff.  Innocent  was  succeeded  by 
a  more  celebrated  '  extirpator  of  sinners,'  Alexander  VI.,  who  treated 
the  unfortunate  prince  with  greater  rigour,  and  soon  received — perhaps 
invited  —  proposals  from  Sultan  Bayezid  11.  for  his  assassination,  and 
from  Charles  VIII.  of  France  (who  wished  to  use  him  as  an  instrument 
in  a  war  with  Bayezid)  for  his  purchase.  After  some  higgling  about 
terms,  his  Holiness  accepted  the  proposals  and  the  money  of  both 


Lect.  I.  NOTES   AND    ILLUSTRATIONS  35 

monarchs,  and  lionourably  redeemed  his  pledges  by  first  administering 
a  dose  of  poison  to  Djem,  and  then  delivering  him  over,  while  yet 
alive,  to  the  King  of  France. 

Innocent  VIII.  was  so  little  ashamed  of  his  conduct  in  the  matter, 
that  he  caused  to  be  struck,  or  rather  cast,  a  medal  in  commemoration 
of  the  bargain  by  which  he  engaged  to  act  as  the  jailor  of  Djem  —  or 
perhaps  he,  to  use  a  phrase  of  our  day,  merely  accepted  as  a  fait 
accompli  the  coining  of  the  medal  by  some  devout  contemporary. 
Among  the  other  treasures  by  which  he  was  bribed  to  this  dishonour- 
able stipulation,  Bayezid  had  sent  him  a  real  or  fictitious  emerald,  with 
the  portraits  of  our  Saviour  and  of  St.  Paul  engraved  upon  it.  This 
rare  medal,  which  is  about  three  and  one-third  inches  in  diameter,  and 
in  the  specimen  before  me  of  gold,  very  thickly  cast  on  a  copper  blank, 
has,  upon  the  obverse,  the  head  of  Christ,  with  the  legend  '  ms  .  xpc  . 
SALVATOR  .  MVNDi,'  or  of  St.  Paul,  and  upon  the  reverse  is  this  inscrip- 
tion, in  a  Latin  worthy  of  the  subject: — 

PRESENTES  .  FIGVRE  .  AD  .  SIMILITVDINEM  .  DOMINI  .  IHESV  .  SALVATORIS  . 
KOSTRI .  ET  .  APOSTOLI  .  PAVLI .  IN .  AMIRALDO  .  IMPRESSE  .  PER .  MAGNI .  THEVCRI  . 
PREDECESSORES  .  ANTIA  .  SINGVLARITER  .  OBSERVATE  .  MISSE  .  SA^NT  .  AB  .  IPSO  . 
MAGNO  .  THEVCRO  .  S.D.N.  PAPE  .  INNOCENCIO  .  OCTAVO  .  PRO  .  SINGVLARI  . 
CLENODIO  .  AD  .  HVNC  .  FINEM  .  VT  .  SWM  .  FRATREM  .  CAPTIVVM  .  RETINERET. 

It  is  remarkable  that  this  ascription  of  divinity  to  the  head  of  the 
Romish  Church,  after  having  fallen  much  into  disuse,  should  have  been 
revived  in  the  days  of  the  present  pope.  The  Ultramontanist  journals 
freely  employ  it ;  and  Bedini,  Archbishop  of  Viterbo  and  Toscanella, 
now  Cardinal,  in  a  recent  pastoral  (1861)  addressed  to  his  diocesans, 
not  only  calls  Pius  IX.  Christ's  '  vicar  on  earth,'  but  asks  the  faithful  to 
deposit  their  tribute  of  Peter's  pence  '  at  the  feet  of  the  persecuted 
Man-God  ' — '  ai  piedi  del  perseguitato  Uom-Dio,' — thus  applying  to  the 
pope  the  name  by  which  the  fathers  of  the  Church  expressed  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Divinity  in  man.  Christ  was  to  them  the  Qe.-dvQpi>)KOQ  or 
Qi-avlpoQ  ;  to  Cardinal  Bedini,  Pius  IX.  is  the  Man-God. 

III.  (p.  10.) 

HISTORICAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

In  Icelandic,  the  authors  of  Njala,  Laxda^la-Saga,  and  the  Heims- 
kringla ;  in  French,  Ville-Hardouin,  Joinville,  Froissart,  and  many 
other  less  important  chroniclers  ;  in  Catalan,  Eamon  Muntaner  and 
Bernat  d'Esclot,  are  all  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  historical 

D  2 


36  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  I. 

writers,  but  no  poet  of  those  ages  and  countries  still  survives  as  an 
actually  living  influence  in  literature.  Even  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  is 
but  little  read,  and  that  rather  for  linguistic  than  for  literary  purposes. 
The  neglect  into  which  this  and  other  poems  of  this  class  have  fallen, 
in  spite  of  tlieir  abundant  beauty  of  imagery,  of  thought,  and  even  of 
expression,  is  the  natural  consequence  of  their  deficiency  in  power  of 
delineating  character,  and  their  want  of  unity  of  conc(!ption  in  plan  and 
execution.  The  rhymed  chronicles  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  generally 
wholly  destitute  of  poetical  merit,  and  they  are  rarely  of  much  value 
considered  simply  as  annals.  They  disregard  historical  truth,  but  fail 
to  secure  the  graces  of  fable  by  the  sacrifice. 

These  observations,  so  far  as  poetry  is  concerned,  do  not  apply  to  the 
literature  of  Germany.  The  admirable  Teutonic  epic,  the  Nibelungen- 
Lied,  is  almost  as  wonderful  a  phenomenon  as  the  Iliad  itself  The 
oldest  manuscripts  of  this  poem  belong  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  though  it  is  founded  on  ancient  and  wide-spread 
Gothic  traditions,  it  is  neither  proved  nor  probable  that  the  rhapsodies 
of  which  it  is  composed  existed  in  a  collected,  harmonised,  and 
recorded  fomi,  at  a  period  long  previous  to  the  date  of  these  manuscripts. 
Considered,  then,  as  a  literary  monument,  the  Nibelungen-Lied  is 
contemporaneous  with  the  chronicle  of  Ville-Hardouin.  But  Germany 
has  no  vernacular  historian  of  that  epoch  to  boast,  and  in  fact  it  may  be 
said  to  be  generally  true  of  the  infant  age  of  every  modern  literature, 
with  the  exception  of  that  of  Italy,  that  it  has  not  produced  at  the  same 
time  great  poets  and  great  historians.  In  point  of  literary  merit,  the 
Icelandic  historical  school  ranks  far  above  any  other  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  it  is  worth  noticing  that, —  while  the  ablest  chroniclers  of 
the  Romance  nations  confine  themselves  chiefly  to  the  narration  of 
events  occurring  under  their  own  observation,  or  very  near  their  own 
time,  and  in  which  they  had  often  personally  participated,  or  at  least, 
known  the  principal  agents, —  very  many  of  the  most  celebrated 
Icelandic  sagas  were  composed  at  dates  considerably  later  than  the 
periods  whose  history  they  record.  Hence,  in  early  Romance  historical 
literature,  the  personality  of  the  annalist  often  makes  itself  conspicuous, 
and  his  narrative  has  a  more  subjective  character  than  those  of  the 
sagas,  the  authors  of  which  are  for  the  most  part  unknown,  and  not 
themselves  dramatis  persona;.  However  siDirited  and  brilliant  may  be 
the  Romance  chronicles  in  the  description  of  events,  they  are  vastly 
inferior  to  the  sagas  in  the  portraiture  of  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the 
gersonality  of  the  individual.  Pew  historical  narrators  have  produced 
more  completely  full  and  rounded  models  of  flesli  and  blood  humanity 


Lect.  I.  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  87 

than  Njall,  and  Gunnarr,  and  Hallgerdr,  in  Njala,  and  Hoskuldr,  and 
Olaf  the  Peacock,  and  Kjartan,  in  Laxdajla. 

IV.  (p.  15.) 

OEIGIN    OF   THE    ROMANCE   LANaUAGES. 

Until  recently,  philologists  have  habitually  spoken  loosely  of  the 
Romance  languages  as  derived  from  the  Latin,  and  are  understood  by 
common  readers  as  meaning  thereby  the  classical  speech  which  served 
as  the  vehicle  of  the  literature  of  ancient  Rome.  That  the  structure, 
and  more  especially  the  vocabulary,  of  the  modern  Romance  tongues 
have  been  very  greatly  affected  by  the  influence  of  Latin,  as  the  lan- 
guage of  Roman  literature  and  of  the  Romish  Church,  is  indisputably 
true ;  but  there  is  abundant  evidence  to  show  that,  contemporaneously 
with  the  written  language  of  ancient  Rome,  there  existed  a  popular 
speech,  comparatively  simple  in  inflectional,  and,  of  course,  syntactical 
structure,  and  bearing  a  considerable  resemblance  to  the  modern  written 
and  spoken  dialects  of  the  Romance  nations.  This  humble  tongue  is 
mentioned  by  many  ancient  writers  under  the  name  of  lingua  rustica,  and 
it  and  its  provincial  dialects  are  considered  by  most  philologists  as  the  true 
parents  of  the  languages  now  employed  throughout  Southern  Europe. 
Although  it  is  usually  referred  to  by  a  collective  name,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  it  was  divided  into  a  great  number  of  local  dialects,  more 
or  less  differing  from  each  other  and  from  written  Latin,  and  that  the 
differences  between  these  dialects  have  been,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
perpetuated  in  the  modern  languages  which  have  succeeded  to  and  now 
represent  them.  It  is  further  possible,  perhaps  we  may  even  say 
probable,  that  there  existed  between  the  oral  and  the  recorded  dialects 
of  the  capital  itself,  some  such  relation  as  that  between  the  written  and 
the  spoken  French  of  the  present  day,  and  hence,  that  the  language  of 
conversation  at  Rome  differed  very  considerably  from  that  of  literature. 

Besides  the  tendency  to  division  and  ramification  which  all  languages 
show  whenever  the  nations  that  speak  them  are  themselves  divided  into 
fragments  separated  by  physical  or  political  barriers,  there  was,  in 
ancient  Italy,  a  special  cause  of  confusion  of  speech,  which  of  itself 
would  account  for  a  great  departure  of  the  oral  from  the  written  tongue, 
as  well  as  for  the  breaking  up  of  the  spoken  language,  had  it  ever  been 
uniform,  into  a  multitude  of  dialects.  I  refer  to  the  exhaustion  of  the 
rural  population,  and  the  substitution  of  foreign-born  predial  slaves  and 
disbanded  soldiers,  from  every  part  of  the  ancient  known  world,  for  the 
native  and  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the  soil.     This  exhaustion  was 


88 


NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  I. 


produced  by  the  military  conscription,  by  the  tendency  of  population 
towards  great  commercial  and  industrial  centres,  which  has  again  become 
so  marked  a  feature  of  the  associate  life  of  Europe,  and  by  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  lesser  estates  into  the  domains  of  the  great  proprietors. 
The  place  of  the  conscript,  or  emigrant  native  peasant,  was  taken  by 
servile  and  discharged  military  strangers  to  such  an  extent,  that  the 
Latin  and  other  Italic  races  were  said  to  have  become  almost  extinct  in 
the  rural  districts  even  before  the  days  of  the  empire.  These  foreigners 
were  of  many  diiferent  stocks  and  diiferent  tongues,  and  though  the 
enslaved  captives  were  distributed  without  much  regard  to  community 
of  origin  or  of  speech,  yet  the  disbanded  veterans  would  naturally  be 
colonised  with  some  reference  to  their  nationality,  and  hence  each  con- 
siderable allotment  of  military  boimty  lands  would  be  a  centre  which 
would  exercise  a  peculiar  influence  upon  the  language  of  its  own  vicinity, 
and  thus  tend  to  create  a  local  patois,  if  none  existed  there  before. 

Raynouard,  Lexique  Eoman,  I.  xiii.,  observes :  '  II  est  reconnu 
aujourd'hui  que  la  romane  rustique  se  forma  de  la  corruption  de  la 
langue  latine,  que  I'ignorance  de  ceux  qui  parlaient  encore  cette 
langue,  a  I'epoque  de  I'invasion  des  hordes  du  Nord,  et  leur  melange 
avec  ces  hordes,  modifierent  d'une  maniere  speciale,  par  suite  de  laquelle 
le  nouvel  idiome  acquit  un  caractere  distinct  d'individualite.' 

This  theory  supposes  that  the  classical  Latin  was  once  the  general 
popular  speech,  not  only  of  Italy,  but  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and  France. 
This  is  an  assumption,  not  only  without  proof,  but  at  variance  Avith 
probability,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  one  vulgar  dialect 
ever  had  a  great  territorial  range  in  the  Italian  peninsula,  still  less  in 
the  distant  subjected  provinces.  We  know  historically  that  Italy  was 
originally,  or  at  least,  at  a  very  early  period,  peopled  by  many  different 
races,  which  were  at  last  united  under  the  government,  and  forced  into 
a  conformity  with  the  institutions  of  Eome.  But  we  have  no  proof 
that  their  vernaculars  ever  melted  and  harmonised  into  one  uniform 
lingua  rustica,  and,  indeed,  the  period  through  which  the  sway  of  Rome 
extended  was  altogether  too  short  for  such  an  amalgamation  to  have 
taken  place  under  such  circumstances.  The  rustic  dialects  are  to  be 
regarded  not  as  corruptions  of  the  Latin,  or  of  any  other  single  speech, 
but  each  as  in  a  certain  sense  the  representative  of  an  older  and  more 
primitive  tongue.  Their  natural  resemblances  are  results  of  a  tendency 
to  coalesce,  imposed  upon  them  by  the  social  and  political  influence  of 
Rome,  not  evidence  of  gi-eater  likeness  and  closer  relationship  at  an 
earlier  stage.  The  Latin  itself  is  but  a  compromise  and  an  amalgama- 
tion of  the  linguistic  peculiarities  of  older  speeches,  and  it  was  probably 


Lfxt.  I,  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  39 

never  employed  as  the  vulgar  tongue  of  Eoman  Italy  to  a  greater  extent 
than  Tuscan  is  spoken  at  this  day  in  the  modern  Italian  States.  So 
far  from  being  the  mother  of  the  rustic  patois,  the  Latin  itself  may 
with  greater  truth,  be  regarded  as  derivative,  and  as  a  coalescence  of 
more  ancient  forms  of  them.  This,  indeed,  is  apparently  less  true  of 
the  grammar  than  of  the  vocabulary.  The  stock  of  words  in  Latin  is 
evidently  of  a  very  mixed  character,  but  the  regularity  and  complete- 
ness of  the  inflections  show  that  the  grammar  of  some  one  ancient 
dialect  very  greatly  predominates  in  the  composite  literary  tongue  of 
Eome. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted,  that  the  general  coincidence 
of  vocabulary  in  the  Eomance  languages,  and  especially  the  occurrence 
of  numerous  words,  substantially  the  same  in  all  of  them,  but  which  can 
hardly  be  traced  to  a  classical  Latin  source  —  such,  for  example,  as  It. 
acciajo,  Sp.  acero,  Fr.  acier;  It,  aguglia,  Sp.  aguja,  Fr. 
aiguille;  It.  arrivare,  Sp.  arribar,  Fr.  arriver;  It.  bianco,  Sp. 
bianco,  Fr.  blanc;  It.  bocca,  Sp.  boca,  Fr.  bouche;  It.  cac- 
ciare,  Sp.  cazar,  Fr.  chasser  —  seems  to  point  to  a  community  of 
origin  which  their  grammatical  discrepancies  tend  to  disprove.  Lite- 
rary and  ecclesiastical  influences  have  been  very  important  agencies  in 
bringing  about  a  uniformity  in  the  stock  of  words,  and  as  to  those  voca- 
bles common  to  all  the  Eomance  dialects,  but  unknown  to  classical 
Latin,  it  is  not  improbable  that  they  belonged  to  popular  nomenclatures 
connected  with  the  military  or  civil  administration  of  the  Eoman 
government,  and  which  were  employed  as  widely  as  that  government 
extended,  though  not  forming  a  part  of  the  literary  tongue. — See  On  the 
Divergence  of  Dialects,  Lecture  II. 

V.  p.  (27.) 

GRAMMAR   AND    PHILOLOaT. 

A  syntax  which  looks  no  higher  than  to  rules  of  concord  and  regi- 
men, the  determination  of  logical  relations  by  the  tallying  of  endings,  is 
not  a  whit  more  intellectual  than  the  game  of  dominoes.  The  study  of 
linguistics  is  valuable,  less  as  an  independent  pursuit,  than  as  a  nieans 
of  access  to  a  wider  range  of  philologies,  understood  in  that  broad  sense 
in  which  the  word  is  now  used  in  German  criticism.  Happily  for  the 
interests  of  learning,  most  distinguished  Continental  linguists  are  phi- 
lologists also.  On  the  other  hand,  American,  and,  I  must  add,  English 
professed  linguists,  are  in  general  but  nibbling  the  shell  while  they 
imagine  themselves  to  be  enjoying  the  kernel  of  the  fruit.     I  desire  not 


40  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  liEcr.  L 

to  be  understood  as  undervaluing  the  linguistic  works  of  such  men  as 
Bopp  and  the  brothers  Grimm,  whose  labours  have  furnished  the  key  to 
such  vast  stores  of  literary  wealth,  but  at  the  same  time  I  maintain  that 
the  student  of  language  who  ends  with  the  linguistics  of  Bopp  and 
Grimm  had  better  never  have  begun ;  for  grammar  has  but  a  value, 
not  a  worth ;  it  is  a  means,  not  an  end ;  it  teaches  but  half-truths,  and, 
except  as  an  introduction  to  literature  and  that  which  literature  embo- 
dies, it  is  a  melancholy  heap  of  leached  ashes,  marrowless  bones,  and 
empty  oyster-shells.  You  may  feed  the  human  intellect  upon  roots, 
stems,  and  endings,  as  you  may  keep  a  horse  upon  saw-dust ;  but  you 
must  add  a  little  literature  in  the  one  case,  a  little  meal  in  the  other, 
and  the  more  the  better  in  both.  Many  years  ago.  Brown,  an  Ameri- 
can grammarian,  invented  what  he  called  a  parsing-machine,  for  teach- 
ing grammar.  It  was  a  mahogany  box,  some  two  feet  square,  provided 
with  a  crank,  filled  with  cog  and  crown-wheels,  pulleys,  bands,  shafts, 
gudgeons,  couplings,  springs,  cams,  and  eccentrics;  and  with  several 
trap -sticks  projecting  through  slots  in  the  top  of  it.  When  played 
upon  by  an  expert  operator,  it  functioned,  as  the  French  say,  very  well, 
and  ran  through  the  syntactical  categories  as  glibly  as  the  footman  in 
Scriblerus  did  through  the  predicates.  But  it  had  one  capital  defect, 
namely,  that  the  pupil  must  have  learned  grammar  by  some  simpler 
method,  before  he  could  understand  the  working  of  the  contrivance, 
and  its  lessons,  therefore,  came  rather  late.  There  are  many  sad  '  com- 
pounds of  printer's  ink  and  brain- dribble,'  styled  '  English  Grammars,* 
which,  as  means  of  instruction,  are,  upon  the  whole,  inferior  to  Brown's 
gimcrack. 


LECTUEE  II. 

OEIGIN  AND  COMPOSITION  OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  PEOPLE  AND 
THEIR  LANGUAGE. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  immediate  subject  of  the  present 
lecture,  I  will  offer  an  explanatory  remark  upon  the  nomencla- 
ture which,  in  common  with  many  writers  on  European  philo- 
logy, I  employ.  I  shall  make  frequent  use  of  the  ethnological 
epithets,  Grothic,  Teutonic,  Germanic,  Scandinavian,  and  Ro- 
mance. Under  the  term  Grothic  I  include  not  only  the  extinct 
Moeso-Grothic  nation  and  language,  and  the  contemporaneous 
kindred  tribes  and  tongues,  but  all  the  later  peoples,  speeches, 
and  dialects  commonly  known  as  Anglo-Saxon,  Grerman,  Dutch, 
Flemish,  Norse,  Swedish,  Danish,  and  Icelandic,  together  with 
our  composite  modern  English.  All  these  are  marked  by  a 
strong  family  likeness,  and  hence  are  assumed,  though  by  no 
means  historically  proved,  to  be  descended  from  a  common 
original.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  words,  chiefly  proper 
names,  which  occur  in  the  writings  of  the  Grreek  and  Latin 
historians  and  geographers,  the  oldest  specimen  we  possess  of 
any  of  the  Grothic  languages  is  the  remnant  of  a  translation  of 
the  Scriptures  executed  by  Ulfilas,  a  bishop  of  the  Moeso-Goths, 
but  himself,  according  to  Philostorgius,  of  Cappadocian  descent, 
who  lived  on  the  shores  of  the  Lower  Danube,  in  the  fourth 
century  after  Christ.*  The  Grothic  languages  divide  themselves 
into  — 

I.  The  Teutonic  or  Germanic  branch,  which  consists  of —  1, 
the  Moeso-Gothic ;  2,  the  Anglo-Saxon;  3,  the  Low-German, 
or   Saxon;    4,   the    Dutch,    or   Netherlandish,   including   the 
*  See  Illustrations  II.  and  V.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


42  GOTHIC  LANGUAGES  I.ect.  II. 

Flemish;  5,  the  Frisic;  and  6,  the  High-German,  to  which 
may  be  added  the  Cimbric  of  the  Sette  and  .the  Tredici  Comuni 
in  Italy*,  and  many  Swiss  and  even  Piedmontese  patois. 

II.  The  Scandinavian  branch,  which  embraces —  1,  the  Old- 
Northern,  or  Icelandic,  improperly  called  Eunic  by  many  earlier 
English  philologists ;  2,  the  Swedish ;  3,  the  Danish,  including 
the  Norse,  or  Norwegian. 

III.  The  Euglish,  which,  though  less  than  half  the  words 
composing  its  total  vocabulary  are  of  Grothic  descent,  is  classed 
with  that  family,  because  in  its  somewhat  mixed  grammatical 
structure  the  Gothic  syntax  very  greatly  predominates,  and  a 
majority  of  the  words  employed  in  the  ordinary  oral  intercourse 
of  life,  and  even  in  almost  any  given  literary  composition,  are 
of  Gothic  etymology.  Perhaps,  also,  the  Scottish  should  be 
regarded  as  a  distinct  speech,  rather  than  as  a  mere  dialect  of 
English. 

All  these,  excepting  the  Moeso-Gothic,  and  presumably  that 
also,  have  or  had  a  great  number  of  spoken,  and  many  of  them 
even  written,  more  or  less  divergent  dialects.  I  am  aware 
that  the  propriety  of  this  application  of  the  terms  Gothic, 
Teutonic,  and  Germanic  is  disputed ;  but  it  has  long  been 
received,  and  will  be  better  understood  than  any  new  phraseology. 

Komance  formerly  meant  —  and  is  still  defined  in  most  dic- 
tionaries —  the  dialects  of  the  Spanish  and  Italian  borders  of 
France  ;  but,  in  recent  criticism,  it  is  a  generic  term  embracing 
all  the  modern  languages  usually  regarded  as  cognate  with  the 
Latin, — in  a  word,  the  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Catalan,  or 
Lemosinf,  Provenpal,  French,  the  Koumansch  of  several  Swiss 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  VI,,  p.  140. 

t  The  Catalan  or  Lemosin  is  often  spoken  of  as  a  dialect  of  Spanish.  If  by 
Spanish  be  meant  the  assemblage  of  speeches  employed  in  Spain,  the  expression 
nay  be  correct ;  but  if  the  Castilian,  the  written  language  of  most  parts  of  Spain, 
be  intended,  it  is  no  more  true  that  Catalan  is  a  dialect  of  Spanish  than  it  is  that 
Spanish  is  a  dialect  of  Catalan.  Neither  is  a  derivative  or  an  offshoot  of  the 
other.  The  development  and  history  of  each  is  independent  of  that  of  the  other, 
and  the  Catalan  is,  in  the  important  point  of  the  construction  of  periods,  quite 
as  near  to  the  French  as  to  the  Castilian. 


Lect.  ir.  OEIGIK   OF   THE   ANGLO-SAXONS  43 

communities  in  its  various  forms,  and  the  Wallachian.  These, 
also,  are  subdivided  into  many  local  dialects,  or  patois,  several 
of  which,  especially  in  Italy,  have  been  reduced  to  writing,  and 
may  not  improperly  be  said  to  have  their  special  literatures. 
We  cannot  affix  a  chronological  date  to  the  epoch  of  change 
from  the  rustic  or  provincial  Koman  to  the  modern  Eomance 
in  any  language  of  this  family  ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  single 
phrases  in  ancient  liturgies,  laws,  and  chronicles,  the  oldest 
extant  monuments  in  a  Eomance  dialect  are  generally  con- 
sidered to  be  the  oaths  of  Louis  le  Germanique  and  of  certain 
French  lords,  subjects  of  Charles  the  Bald,  sworn  at  Strasburg 
in  842.* 

Many  recent  inquirers  believe  that  the  Continental  invaders, 
of  Grothic  origin,  who  reduced  Celtic  England  to  subjection  a 
few  centuries  after  Christ,  emigrated  from  a  small  district  in 
Sleswick  now  called  Angeln,  and  were  all  of  one  race  —  the 
Angles, —  that  the  designation  Saxon  was  not  the  proper  appel- 
lation of  any  of  them,  but  a  name  ignorantly  bestowed  upon 
them  by  the  native  Celts,  and  at  last,  to  some  small  extent, 
adopted  by  themselves.  It  is  hence  argued  that  the  proper 
name  of  their  language  is  not  Saxon,  or  even  Anglo-Saxon,  but 
Angle,  or,  in  the  modern  form,  English.  It  is  farther  insisted 
that  the  present  speech  of  England  is  nearly  identical  with  the 
dialect  introduced  into  the  island  by  the  immigrants  in  question, 
and  consequently,  that  there  is  no  ground  for  distinguishing  the 
old  and  the  new  by  different  names,  it  being  sufficient  to  cha- 
racterise the  successive  periods  and  phases  of  the  Anglican 
speech  by  epithets  indicative  of  mere  chronological  relation, 
saying,  for  instance,  for  Anglo-Saxon,  old,  or  primitive  English, 
—  for  our  present  tongue,  new,  or  modern  English. 

I  differ  from  these  theorists  as  to  both  premises  and  conclu- 
sion.f  By  those  who  maintain  such  doctrines,  it  appears  to  be 
assumed  that  if  the  evidence  upon  which  it  has  been  hitherto 

*  See  Illustration  I.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 
t  See  First  Series,  Lectui*e  I.,  pp.  41 — 45. 


>3> 


44  ORIGIN   OF   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS  Lect.  II. 

believed  that  the  immigration  was  composed  of  three  different 
tribes,  —  Jutes,  or  Jutlanders,  Angles,  and  Saxons,  —  could  be 
overthrown,  it  would  follow  that  it  consisted  of  Angles  alone. 
This  is  altogether  a  non  sequitur ;  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  only  historical  proof  which  establishes  the  participation 
of  a  tribe  called  Angles  in  the  invasions  of  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries  at  all  is  precisely  the  evidence  which  is  adduced  to 
show  that  Saxons  accompanied  or  followed  them.  It  must  be 
admitted,  indeed,  that  the  extant  direct  testimony  upon  the 
whole  subject  is  open  to  great  objections,  and  that  scarcely  any 
of  the  narrative  accounts  of  the  Germanic  conquest  of  England 
will  stand  the  test  of  historical  criticism.  That  the  new-comers 
themselves  styled  portions  of  the  territory  they  occupied  Essex, 
Sussex,  Wessex,  and  Middlesex, —  that  is,  the  districts  of  the 
East  Saxons,  South  Saxons,  West  Saxons,  and  Middle  Saxons, — 
is  undisputed ;  and  it  is  a  violently  improbable  supposition,  that 
they  bestowed  on  these  localities  a  name  mistakenly  applied  to 
themselves  by  the  natives,  instead  of  calling  them  by  their  own 
proper  and  familiar  national,  or  at  least  tribal,  appellation. 
They  also  often  spoke  of  themselves,  or  of  portions  of  them- 
selves, as  Saxons,  of  their  language  as  the  Saxon  speech,  and 
Alfred's  usual  royal  signature  was  ^Eex  Saxonum,' though,  indeed, 
they  more  generally  called  the  whole  people  and  the  language 
Angle,  or  English. 

Apart  from  the  testimony  of  the  chroniclers  —  which  modern 
inquirers  seem  generally  and  with  good  reason  much  inclined 
to  suspect  —  the  only  proof  which  identifies  the  Angles  of 
England  with  any  Continental  people  is  the  perhaps  accidental 
coincidence  between  their  name  and  that  of  a  Germanic,  or,  as 
some  writers  maintain,  a  Scandinavian  tribe,  occupying  a 
corner  of  Sleswick  so  narrow  in  extent  as  hardly  to  be  noticed 
at  all  in  Continental  history.  It  is  equally  true  that  there  is 
no  external  testimony  to  show  that  any  nation,  known  to  itself 
as  Saxon  while  yet  resident  on  Teutonic  soil,  furnished  any 
contingent  to  the  bodies  of  invaders.     Germanic  and  Scandi- 


Lect.  II.  LINGUISTIC   CHANGES 


navian  history  are  silent  on  the  whole  subject*,  except  in  some 
few  passages  probably  borrowed  from  Anglo-Saxon  authorities ; 
and  in  the  want  of  trustworthy  information  from  native  annalists, 
we  must  have  recourse  to  the  internal  evidence  supplied  by  the 
language,  and  to  the  probabilities  deduced  from  such  indirect 
and  fragmentary  facts  as  have  come  down  to  us,  through  other 
channels,  from  the  dark  and  remote  period  of  emigration. 

What  then  does  the  character  of  the  language  commonly,  and, 
as  I  think,  appropriately,  called  Anglo-Saxon,  when  examined 
in  the  earliest  forms  known  to  us,  indicate  with  respect  to  the 
origin  of  those  who  spoke  it  ? 

According  to  the  present  views  of  the  ablest  linguists,  gram- 
matical structure  is  a  much  more  essential  and  permanent 
characteristic  of  languages  than  the  vocabulary,  and  is  therefore 
alone  to  be  considered  in  tracing  their  history  and  determining 
their  ethnological  affinities.  This  theory,  I  think,  is  carried  too 
far,  when  it  is  insisted  that  no  amalgamation  of  the  grammatical 
characteristics  of  different  speeches  is  possible ;  for  though 
languages  often  receive  and  assimilate  a  great  amount  of  foreign 
material  without  much  change  of  structure,  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  are  cases  of  the  adoption  of  more  or  less  of  foreign 
syntax  while  the  vocabulary  remains  in  a  good  degree  the  same, 
and  even  while  the  people  who  employ  it  continue  almost  wholly 
unmixed  in  blood  with  other  nations.  The  Armenians,  for 
example,  can  boast  of  a  purer  and  more  ancient  descent  than 
any  other  Christian  people,  and  they  have  kept  themselves, 
during  the  whole  period  since  their  conversion  to  Christianity 
in  the  fourth  century,  almost  as  distinct  in  blood  and  as  marked 
in  nationality  as  the  Hebrews.  Their  language  is  lineally 
descended  from  the  old  Armenian  tongue,  its  radicals  remaining 
substantially  the  same,  but  its  grammar  is  everywhere  modified 
by  that  of  the  prevailing  idiom  of  the  different  countries  where, 
in  the  wide  dispersion  of  the  Armenian  people,  it  is  spoken. 

*  It  deserves  to  be  specially  noticed  that  the  names  of  neither  Angle  nor  Saxon 
occur  in  Beowulf. 


46  MIXTURE  OF   GRAMMARS  Lect.  II. 

According  to  our  learned  countryman,  Mr.  Riggs,  the  syntax 
of  the  Armenian  spoken  in  Turkey  has  conformed  itself  to  the 
structure  of  the  Turkish,  and  while  the  ancient  Armenian 
Scriptures  correspond  with  the  Hebrew  text  in  the  logical 
construction  of  periods  and  the  arrangement  of  the  words  that 
compose  them,  the  modern  Armenian  exactly  inverts  the  order 
of  position,  and,  in  accordance  with  Turkish  syntax,  places  first 
all  instrumental,  local,  and  circumstantial  qualifications,  and 
announces  the  principal  proposition  at  the  end  of  the  sentence. 
Thus,  to  use  the  illustration  of  Mr.  Kiggs,  a  Turco-Armenian, 
in  saying,  '  that  a  Greek  shot  an  Egyptian  yesterday  with  a 
pistol,  in  a  drunken  quarrel,  in  one  of  the  streets  of  the  city,' 
instead  of  arranging  the  words  in  the  ancient  Armenian  order, 
which  nearly  corresponds  with  the  English,  would  announce 
the  proposition  in  this  form: — ^Yesterday  —  of  this  city  —  of 
the  streets  —  one  —  in  —  of  wine  —  the  use  —  in  originating 
—  of  a  quarrel  —  in  consequence  —  with  a  pistol  —  a  Grreek  — 
an  Egyptian  killed.'  * 

A  linguistic  inquirer,  who  adopts  the  theory  I  am  discussing, 
might  conclude  from  the  study  of  modern  Armenian  grammar 
that  the  people  and  the  language  belonged  to  the  Tartar  stock ; 
whereas  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  Armenians  and 
their  speech  are  ethnologically  unrelated  to  the  Ottoman  race  and 
the  Turkish  tongue.  If  therefore  it  were  true  that  the  gram- 
matical coincidence  between  Anglo-Saxon  and  any  given  Con- 
tinental dialect  were  closer  than  it  is,  the  identity  of  the  two 
would  not  thereby  alone  be  conclusively  proved.  In  point  of 
fact,  Anglo-Saxon  grammar  does  not  precisely  correspond  to 
that  of  any  other  Gothic  speech,  but,  on  the  contrary,  embraces 
some  characteristics  of  several  Germanic  and  even  Scandinavian 
dialects. 

The  Anglo-Saxon,  and  especially  the  English  language,  have 
been  affected  in  both  vocabulary  and  structure  by  the  influence 
of  all  the  Gothic  and  Romance  tongues  with  which  they  have 

*  Transactions  of  the  American  Oriental  Society  for  1860. 


Li:cT.  II.  3IIXTUIIB   OP   GRAMMARS  47 

been  brought  into  long  and  close  contact.  Doubtless  this 
influence  is  most  readily  perceived  and  appreciated  in  the  stock 
of  words,  but  although  more  obscure  and  much  smaller  in  actual 
amount  of  results,  it  is,  I  think,  not  less  unequivocal  in  its  effects 
upon  the  syntax. 

A  comparison  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  gospels  with  older  monu- 
ments of  the  language,  Beowulf  and  the  poems  of  Csedmon,  for 
instance,  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the  Latin  text  on  the  other, 
appears  to  me  to  show  very  clearly  that  the  syntax  of  the  transla- 
tion, and,  through  the  influence  of  that  translation,  of  the  general 
Anglo-Saxon  speech,  was  sensibly  affected  by  the  incorporation 
of  Latin  constructions  previously  unknown  to  it.  I  cannot 
here  go  into  this  question  at  length,  but  I  may  refer  to  a  single 
exemplification  of  this  influence  in  the  employment  of  the 
active  or  present  participle,  in  both  absolute  and  dependent 
phrases,  in  close  accordance  with  the  Latin  usage.* 

The  Anglo-Saxon  compared  the  adjectiveby  change  of  ending 
only,  or  inflection,  and  not  by  the  adverbs  Tnore  and  most; 
the  Norman-French,  by  the  help  of  adverbs.  The  English 
employs  both  methods,  the  latter  almost  uniformly  in  long 
words.  The  possessive  relation  between  nouns  was  expressed 
in  Anglo-Saxon  by  a  regular  possessive  or  genitive  case,  and 
not  by  a  preposition ;  in  Norman-French,  in  general,  by  a  prepo- 
sition only.  In  English  both  modes  are  used.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
did  not  employ  a  preposition  before  the  infinitive,  but  had  a 
special  verbal  form  nearly  analogous  to  the  Latin  gerund,  which 
is  by  some  considered  as  a  dative  case  of  the  infinitive  ;  the  Nor- 
man-French infinitive,  in  many  cases,  took  a  preposition.  The 
English  first  dropped  the  characteristic  ending  of  the  gerundial, 
thus  reducing  it  to  the  infinitive  form,  and  then  regularly  preceded 
the  infinitive,  except  when  coupled  with  an  auxiliary  verb,  by 
a  preposition ;  thus  amalgamating,  or  rather  confounding,  the 
offices  of  the  two  forms. f 

*  See  Illustration  II.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 
t  See  Illustration  III.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


48  ANaLO-SAXON  LANGUAGE  Lbct.  II. 

Now  these  and  other  analogous  cases  are  instances  of  the  sub- 
stitution of  foreign  grammatical  combinations  for  native  inflec- 
tions, or,  in  other  words,  of  a  mixture  of  grammars  jpro  tanto. 
They  are,  indeed,  not  numerous  or  important  enough  to  affect 
the  general  character  of  English  syntax,  which  is  in  very  large 
measure  derived  from  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon ;  but  they  are 
sufficient  to  prove  that  the  doctrine  of  the  impossibility  of  any 
gi'ammatical  mixture  is  a  too  hasty  generalisation ;  and  hence 
the  extent  of  syntactical  amalgamation  is  simply  a  question  of 
proportion. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  is  not  grammatically  or  lexically  identi- 
fiable with  the  extant  remains  of  any  Continental  dialect ;  but,  so 
far  as  it  is  to  be  considered  a  homogeneous  tongue,  it  much  re- 
sembles what  is  called  the  Old-Saxon  of  the  Heliand  (a  religious 
poem  of  the  ninth  century),  and  the  Frisic,  both  of  which  belong 
to  the  Low-German  or  Saxon  branch  of  the  Teutonic ;  and  hence 
we  are  authorised  to  presume,  that  the  bulk  of  the  invaders 
emigrated  from  some  territory  not  remote  from  the  coast  of  the 
North  Sea,  where  the  population  employed  a  Low-Grerman  dia- 
lect or  dialects.  The  composite  and  heterogeneous  character  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary,  or,  in  other  words,  the  internal 
evidence  derived  from  the  language  itself,  tends  to  the  same  con- 
clusions, in  respect  to  the  origin  of  the  tongue  and  the  people, 
to  which  we  should  be  led  by  the  little  we  know  of  the  history 
of  maritime  Grermany  and  the  Netherlands  during  the  period 
succeeding  the  Roman  occupation  of  a  part  of  that  territory.  It 
is  evidently  a  mixed  speech ;  and  we  can,  in  many  instances, 
trace  its  different  ingredients  to  sources  not  having  much  imme- 
diate relation  to  each  other. 

The  martial  triumphs  and  extended  despotism  of  Eome  dis- 
lodged and  expelled  from  their  native  seats  great  numbers,  if 
not  whole  tribes,  of  a  people  who,  at  that  period,  were  just  in 
the  state  of  semi-civilization  which  Thucydides  describes  as  that 
of  the  early  Greeks, —  a  state  which  offers  no  obstacle  to  emi- 
gration, but  facilitates  it,  because  it  has  no  permanent  and  well- 


Lect.  II.  EFFECTS  OF   ROMAN   CONQUEST  49 

secured  homes,  no  strong  local  attachments,  and  at  the  same 
time  is  far  enough  advanced  in  pastoral  and  mechanical  art,  to 
be  provided  with  the  means  of  locomotion  and  of  the  transporta- 
tion of  such  objects  as  man  in  that  condition  of  life  most  highly 
prizes. 

The  line  of  march  of  the  fugitives  who  retreated  before  the 
Roman  legions,  would  be  to  the  north-west ;  both  because  the 
Ehine,  the  Elbe,  and  their  tributary  streams,  on  which  many  of 
them  would  embark,  flow  in  that  direction,  and  because  the  dif- 
ficult nature  of  the  country  lying  between  the  outlets  of  the 
great  northern  rivers  opposed  the  most  formidable  obstacles  to 
the  advance  of  a  pursuing  force ;  and,  while  it  offered  ample 
means  of  subsistence  in  the  abundance  of  the  sea,  yet  held  out 
few  attractions  of  a  character  to  tempt  the  cupidity  of  the  Roman 
robber.  Hence,  independently  of  other  more  or  less  similar, 
earlier  or  contemporaneous,  concurrent  causes,  it  is  extremely 
probable  that,  in  consequence  of  the  progress  of  the  Roman 
arms  about  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  and  during 
the  immediately  preceding  and  succeeding  centuries,  a  multi- 
tude of  tribes,  and  fragments  of  tribes,  languages,  and  frag- 
ments of  languages,  were  distributed  along  the  coasts  of  the 
German  Ocean,  and  the  navigable  waters  which  discharge  them- 
selves into  it. 

The  jealousies  of  family  and  of  class,  which  are  such  a  con- 
spicuous feature  in  the  character  of  all  rude  races,  would  long 
prevent  the  coalescence  of  distinct  bodies  of  these  people,  or  the 
fusion  of  their  unwritten  dialects ;  and  these,  indeed,  by  the  iso- 
lation of  those  who  spoke  them,  would  tend  to  diverge  rather 
than  assimilate,  until  some  one  group  or  confederacy  of  tribes 
should  become  strong  enough  to  conquer  or  absorb  the  rest. 
We  have  no  historical  evidence  whatever,  of  any  political  or  lin- 
guistic unity  between  the  inhabitants  of  different  portions  of  the 
coast;  and  no  legitimate  deduction  from  the  known  habits  and 
tendencies  of  half-savage  life  would  lead  to  such  conclusion. 

At  this  period,  the  low  lands,  subject  to  overflow  by  the  Grer- 

E 


50  COASTS  OF  GERMAN   OCEAN  Li:cT.  II. 

man  Ocean  and  by  the  great  rivers  which  empty  into  it,  were 
not  diked ;  but,  as  appears  from  Pliny*,  the  few  inhabitants  of 
the  tide-washed  flats  lived  in  huts  erected  on  artificial  mounds, 
as  upon  the  coast-islands  they  do  at  this  day.  The  art  of  diking 
seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  the  causeways  and  the  mili- 
tary engineering  of  the  Romans.  But  the  labour  and  expense 
involved  in  it  were  so  great,  that  it  made  very  slow  progress ; 
and  no  considerable  extent  of  this  coast  was  diked  in  until  long 
after  the  Saxon  conquest  of  England.  Upon  the  firm  land  were 
vast  woods  and  morasses,  which  prevented  free  communication 
between  the  population,  and  it  was  consequently  separated  into 
independent  bodies,  united  by  no  tie  of  common  interest. 

Wherever  man,  in  the  state  of  life  in  which  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  all  history  places  the  Northern  Grermans  at  the 
period  of  which  we  speak,  is  accessible  to  observation,  he  is 
found  divided  into  small  and  hostile  clans,  distinguished  by  con- 
siderable, and  constantly  widening,  differences  of  dialect,  and 
incapable  of  harmonious  or  extended  political  or  social  action. 
The  traditional  accounts  of  the  Saxon  conquest  of  England 
speak  of  numerous  successive  and  totally  distinct  bodies  of  in- 
vaders ;  and  the  probability  that  any  one  tribe,  or  any  one  con- 
tinuous territorial  district,  even  if  all  its  clans  were  united  under 
one  head,  could  have  furnished  a  sufficient  force  to  subdue  the 
island  in  any  one  or  any  ten  successive  expeditions,  is  too  slen- 
der to  be  admitted  for  a  moment. 

The  people  who  inhabit  the  coasts  of  the  North  Sea  have  now 
been  Christianised  for  a  thousand  years,  and  brought  under  the 
sway  of  two  or  three  governments.  During  all  these  ten  cen- 
turies, all  religious  and  all  political  influences  have  powerfully 
tended  to  the  extirpation  of  local  differences  of  speech,  and  to 
the  reduction  of  the  multiplied  patois,  if  not  to  one,  to  two  or 
three  leading  dialects.  Yet,  though  all  known  external  causes 
of  discrepancy  have  long  since  ceased  to  act,  we  find  that,  in 
spite  of  the  harmonising  influences  to  which  I  have  alluded, 

*  Nat.  Hist.  XTi.  1, 


Lect.  II.  MULTITUDE   OF   DIALECTS  51 

every  hour  of  travel,  as  we  advance  from  the  Ehine  to  the  Eider, 
brings  us  to  a  new  vernacular.  Within  the  space  of  three  hun- 
dred miles,  we  meet  with  at  least  a  dozen,  mostly  unwritten, 
dialects,  not  only  so  discrepant  as  to  be  mutually  unintelligible 
to  those  who  speak  them,  but  often  marked  by  lexical  and  gram- 
matical differences  scarcely  less  wide  than  those  which  distin- 
guish any  two  Grothic  or  any  two  Eomance  tongues.*  There  is 
not  a  shadow  of  proof,  there  is  no  semblance  of  probability,  that 
the  inhabitants  of  these  coasts  spoke  with  more  uniformity  four- 
teen centuries  ago  than  to-day,  but  every  presumption  is  to  the 
contrary. 

Jacob  Grrimm,  indeed,  observes  that  all  dialects  and  patois 
develope  themselves  progressively,  and  the  further  we  look  back 
in  language,  the  smaller  is  their  number  and  the  less  marked 
are  they.f  This  is  in  accordance  with  all  linguistic  theory,  and 
if  human  annals  reached  far  enough  back  to  exhibit  to  us  earlier 
stages  of  divergence  of  speech,  the  proposition  would  probably 
be  found  historically  true ;  but  if  we  take  the  different  linguistic 
families  of  Europe,  and  follow  them  up  as  far  as  documentary 
evidence  can  be  traced,  the  reverse  appears,  in  verj  many  cases, 
to  be  the  fact.  The  dialects  diverge  as  we  ascend.  If  we  com- 
pare any  one  of  the  Low-Grerman  dialects  of  the  present  day 

*  See  Halbertsma's  very  remarkable  account  of  the  confusion  and  instability  of 
speech  in  the  Frisian  provinces  of  Holland,  in  Bosworth's  Origin  of  the  Germanic 
and  Scandinavian  languages,  pp.  36-38.  See  also  First  Series,  Lectures  II.,  p.  43, 
and  XVIII.,  p.  378.  And  yet  the  multitude  of  dialects  was  greater  within  the 
memory  of  persons  now  living  than  it  is  at  present. 

t  '  AUe  Mundarten  und  Dialecte  entfalten  sich  vorschreitend,  und  je  weiter  man  in 
der  Sprache  zuriickschaut,  desto  geringer  ist  ihre  Zahl,  desto  schwacher  ausgepragt 
sind  sie.  Ohne  diese  Annahme  wiirde  uberhaupt  der  Ursprung  der  Dialecte,  wie 
der  Vielheit  der  Spraehen  unbegreifiich  sein.' 

Although  the  learned  author  declares  that  this  proposition  is  *  aus  der  Geschichto 
der  Sprache  geschopft  und  in  der  Natur  ihrer  Spaltung  gegriindet,'  it  must  never- 
theless be  considered  rather  as  a  corollary  from  the  doctrine  of  the  descent  of  the 
human  family  from  a  single  stock,  than  as  a  statement  of  historically  established 
fact.  The  proofs,  or  rather  illustrations,  adduced  by  Grimm  amount  to  very  little, 
and  the  conclusion  is  drawn  not  from  evidence,  but  from  assumptions  founded  on 
the  supposed  impossibility  of  otherwise  explaining  the  origin  of  dialects  and  the 
multiplicity  of  languages. 

£  2 


52  SCANDINAVIAN   DIALECTS  Lect.  II. 

with  the  contemporaneous  High  Grerman,  we  shall  find  a  marked 
difference  indeed,  which,  if  the  former  now  had  a  living  litera- 
ture and  were  spoken  by  a  people  governed  by  a  distinct  politi- 
cal organisation,  would  perhaps  be  held  sufficient  to  entitle 
them  to  be  considered  as  different  languages.  But  between  the 
poem  Heliand  and  the  Krist  of  Otfrid  —  both  of  the  ninth 
century  and  therefore  nearly  contemporaneous  —  the  former 
being  t^ken  as  the  representative  of  the  Low,  the  latter  as  that  of 
the  High  German,  there  is  a  much  more  palpable  difference  than 
exists  at  the  present  day,  or  at  any  intermediate  period,  between 
the  dialects  which  stand  in  the  place  of  them.  If  we  extend 
the  comparison  so  as  to  embrace  the  Moeso-Gothic,  which 
Grimm*  declares  to  have  become  wholly  extinct  and  to  have 
left  no  surviving  posterity,  we  find  a  greater  diversity  still.f 
Over  how  large  a  space  either  of  these  three  Germanic  speeches 
prevailed,  we  do  not  know ;  nor  have  we  any  warrant  whatever 
for  affirming,  any  probable  ground  for  presuming,  that  there  did 
not  exist,  by  the  side  of  these,  numerous  other  dialects  as  unlike 
either  of  them  as  they  are  to  each  other. 

In  the  case  of  the  Scandinavian  languages,  the  Swedish, 
Danish,  and  modern  Icelandic,  indeed,  the  facts  are  said  to  be 
different.  It  is  affirmed  that,  at  a  period  not  very  remote,  a 
tongue  substantially  the  same  as  what  is  now  called  Icelandic 
was  spoken  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  and  that  the  pre- 
sent languages  of  those  three  countries  are  lineally  descended 
from  the  primitive  Old-Northern  speech. f  Admitting  this  to  be 
so,  a  reason  why  we  are  able  to  trace  the  Scandinavian  dialects 
historically  to  a  common  original  might  be  found  in  the  fact, 
that  the  migration  of  the  Scandinavians  into  their  present  seats, 
the  multiplication  of  their  numbers,  their  consequent  spread 
over  a  wide  surface,  and  their  separation  and  division  into  dis- 

*  *  Die  gotische  ist  ganz,  ohne  dasz  etwas  neueres  an  ihre  stelle  getreten  wiire, 
erloschen.' 
t  See  Illustrations  IV.  and  V.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 
I  See  Illustration  VI.  at  the  end  of  this  lectui-e. 


Lect.  II.  ROMANCE   LANGUAGES  53 

tinct  tribes  with  divergent  speeches  —  all  these  events  are  very- 
much  more  recent  than  the  occupation  of  Germany  by  the  an- 
cestors of  its  present  population,  and  the  division  of  that  popu- 
lation, *if  indeed  ever  homogeneous,  into  separate  tribes. 

The  comparatively  late  date  of  the  Gothic  colonisation  of 
Scandinavia  is  proved  by  a  variety  of  circumstances  which  can- 
not now  be  detailed,  but  it  is  well  to  refer  to  one  of  them  — 
the  fact,  namely,  that  the  older  race  whom  the  Scandinavian 
Goths  expelled  from  Norway,  Sweden,  and  perhaps  Denmark  — 
the  Laplanders,  or,  as  the  Old-Northern  writers  call  them,  the 
Finns  —  is  not  yet  extirpated,  but  still  exists  as  a  distinct 
people,  with  its  original  speech ;  whereas  nearly  every  trace  of  a 
more  ancient  population  of  Germany  has  utterly  disappeared. 

We  have  no  similar  evidence  with  respect  to  the  unity,  or 
even  close  relationship,  of  the  Germanic  peoples  and  their  dia- 
lects within  any  calculable  period.  It  is  not  proved  that  any 
modern  High-German  or  Low-German  speech  is  derived  from 
the  Moeso-Gothic  of  Ulfilas,  or  from  the  dialect  of  Otfrid,  or  of 
the  Heliand;  and  it  is  just  as  probable  that  all  the  Germanic 
patois  are  descended  from  parallel  old  dialects,  the  memory  of 
which  is  lost  because  their  written  monuments  have  perished,  if 
any  such  ever  existed. 

If  we  do  not  find  a  similar  state  of  things  in  the  Eomance 
languages,  it  is  because  they  are  all  directly  derived,  not  indeed 
from  the  classical  Latin,  but  from  cognate  unwritten  dialects 
which  group  themselves  around  the  Latin  as  their  common  re- 
presentative and  only  mouthpiece.  Hence  their  tendencies  to  a 
wider  divergence  were  always  checked  by  the  influence  of  a 
central,  written,  authoritative,  ever-living  and  immutable  speech, 
no  parallel  to  which,  so  far  as  we  have  any  reason  to  believe, 
,  existed  in  Germany. 

As  a  general  rule,  then,  applicable  to  what  is  called  the  his- 
torical period,  or  that  through  which  written  records  extend, 
dialects  have  usually  tended  to  uniformity  and  amalgg.mation  as 
they  descend  the  stream  of  time ;  and  as  we  trace  them  back- 


54  ANGLO-SAXON   LANGUAGE  Lect.  II. 

wards,  they  ramify  like  rivers  and  their  tributaries,  until  the 
main  current  is  lost  in  a  dispersion  as  distracting  as  the  con- 
fusion of  Babel.* 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  conquerors  of  England  were  a  people  of  one  name  or  of 
one  speech,  but  on  the  contrary  there  is  every  probability  that 
they  were,  though  ethnologically  and  linguistically  nearly  or 
remotely  allied,  yet  practically,  and  as  they  viewed  themselves, 
composed  of  fragments  of  peoples  more  or  less  alien  to  each 
other  in  blood  and  in  tongue. 

They  were  Christianized  not  far  from  the  close  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  from  this  epoch  all  influences  tended  to  amalga- 
mation and  community  of  speech.  We  have  monuments  of  the 
language  which  date  very  soon  after  this  period,  but,  as  they 
are  extant  only  in  copies  executed  in  later  centuries,  we  know 
not  their  primitive  orthography,  nor  have  we  any  actual  know- 
ledge of  the  forms  or  grammatical  character  of  the  language 
earlier  than  the  eighth  or  ninth  century,  because  we  possess  no 
manuscripts  of  greater  antiquity,  f 

Whatever,  then,  may  have  been  the  original  discrepancies  of 
the  speech,  they  had  been,  at  our  earliest  acquaintance  with  it, 
in  some  degree  at  least,  harmonised.  Still  we  cannot  say  that 
Anglo-  Saxon,  even  at  that  period,  presents  the  characteristics  of 
a  homogeneous,  self-developed  tongue.     Its  inflections,  as  exhi- 

*^  See  Illustration  VII.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

t  The  determination  of  the  age  of  Anglo-Saxon  manuscripts  from  internal  evi- 
dence is  a  matter  of  much  diificulty  and  uncertainty,  because  there  are  few  such 
■writings  of  known  date,  by  which  the  antiquity  of  undated  copies  can  be  tested. 
An  expression  of  Alfred,  in  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  Boethius,  would  tend 
to  show  that  Anglo-Saxon  was  hardly  a  commonly  ^vritten  language  until  he  made 
it  so;  for  in  the  phrase,  ' of  bec-ledene  on  Englisc  wende,'  bee  ledene 
means  not  so  properly  Latin,  as  simply  the  hooJc-language,  the  written  tongue  —  a 
term  not  likely  to  be  used  if  Anglo-Saxon  books  were  then  common.  This  con- 
sideration may  be  thought  to  furnish  another  argument  against  the  authenticity  of 
Asser,  who  puts  a  manuscript  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  with  illuminated  capitals 
into  Alfred's  hands  when  he  could  have  been  but  four  years  old.  It  would,  how- 
ever, be  going  quite  too  far  to  deny  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  had  been  written  at  all 
until  60  late  a  period  as  the  birth  of  Alfred. 


Lkct.  II.  ANGLO-SAXON   MIXED  55 

bited  in  the  works  of  different  writers,  and  in  different  manu- 
scripts of  the  same  writer,  vary  to  an  extent  that  indicates  a 
great  diversity  of  orthography,  if  not  of  actual  declension  and 
conjugation.  Its  syntax  is  irregular  and  discrepant ;  and  though 
both  its  grammar  and  its  vocabulary  connect  it  most  nearly  with 
the  Low,  or  Platt-Deutsch  branch  of  the  German,  yet  it  has 
grammatical  forms,  as  well  as  verbal  combinations  and  vocables, 
which  indicate  now  a  relationship  to  High-Grerman,  and  now  to 
Scandinavian,  not  to  speak  of  Celtic  roots  which  it  may  have 
borrowed  from  the  Britons,  or  may  have  received,  at  an  earlier 
date,  from  the  ancient  fountain  of  Indo-European  speech  whence 
the  Celtic  and  Gothic,  as  well  as  the  Eomance  and  Hellenic, 
languages  of  Europe  are  theoretically  considered  to  have  flowed. 
In  short,  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  much  such  a  language  as  it 
might  be  supposed  would  result  from  a  fusion  of  the  Old-Saxon 
with  smaller  proportions  of  High-German,  Scandinavian,  and 
even  Celtic  and  Sclavonic  elements;  and  it  bears  nearly  the 
same  relation  to  those  ingredients  as  modern  English  bears  to 
its  own  constituents,  though,  indeed,  no  single  influence  was 
exerted  upon  it  so  disturbing  in  character  as  the  Norman-French 
has  proved  to  our  present  tongue. 

We  find,  then,  neither  in  historical  record,  nor  in  the  structure 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  speech,  any  sufficient  evidence  of  the  con-l 
trolling  predominance  of  any  one  tribe,  or  any  one  now  identi- 
fiable dialect,  in  the  Saxon  colonisation  of  England;  and  we 
may  fairly  suppose  that  both  are  derived,  in  proportions  no 
longer  ascertainable,  from  all  the  races  and  tongues  which  were 
found  between  the  Ehine  and  the  Eider,  with  contributions  from 
the  Scandinavian  and  Sclavonic  tribes  of  the  Atlantic  and  Baltic 
shores,  and  from  other  even  more  remote  sources  which  have 
left  no  traces  sufficiently  distinct  for  recognition. 

Although  we  are  unable  to  say  when  the  revolution  took 
place,  or  by  precisely  what  succession  of  steps  the  common 
speech  of  England  advanced  from  the  simple  accents  of  the 
Saxon  poet  Caedmon  to  the  ornate  culture  of  Chaucer,  it  is  not 


56  ANGLO-SAXON  NOT  ENGLISH  Lect.  II. 

the  less  certain  that  a  change  has  occurredj  which  has  separated 
the  dialect  that  embodies  the  modem  literature  of  England,  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  by  an  interval  wider  than  the  space 
which  divides  the  language  of  modern  Tuscany  from  that  of 
ancient  Eome. 

There  is  little  force  in  the  argument,  that  we  ought  to  call 
the  language  of  King  Alfred  English  because  his  contemporaries 
usually  so  styled  it.  That  appellation  has  been  irrevocably 
transferred  to  the  present  speech  of  England,  and  has  become 
its  exclusive  right.  To  designate  by  one  term  things  logically 
distinct  is  to  purchase  simplicity  of  nomenclature  at  the  expense 
of  precision  of  thought ;  and  there  is  no  linguistic  test  by  which 
the  identity  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  modern  English  can  be  esta- 
blished. Words,  whether  spoken  or  written,  whether  addressed 
to  the  ear  or  to  the  eye,  are  formed  and  grouped  into  periods 
as  a  means  of  communication  between  man  and  man.  When- 
ever a  given  set  of  words  and  of  syntactical  forms  becomes 
constant,  and  is  generally  accepted  by  a  people  or  a  tribe,  the 
assemblage  of  them  constitutes  a  language  ;  but  when  the  voca- 
bulary and  the  inflections  of  a  particular  speech  have  been  so 
changed,  either  by  the  decay  of  native  and  the  substitution  of 
foreign  roots,  or  by  grammatical  corruptions  or  improvements, 
that  the  old  and  the  new  dialects  would  no  longer  be  mutually 
intelligible,  in  either  their  spoken  or  their  written  forms,  to 
those  trained  to  use  them,  it  is  then  an  abuse  of  words  to  give 
to  them  a  common  appellation.  To  call  by  the  same  name  a 
language  like  the  Anglo-Saxon  —  whose  vocabulary  is  mainly 
derived  from  the  single  Grothic  stock,  and  whose  syntax  is  regu- 
lated by  inflection  —  and  a  language  like  the  English  —  more 
than  one  half  of  whose  words  are  borrowed  from  Komance,  or 
other  remotely  related  sources,  and  whose  syntax  depends  upon 
auxiliaries,  particles,  and  position — would  lead  to  a  mischievous 
confusion  of  ideas,  and  an  entire  misconception  of  our  true 
philological  position  and  relations.* 

*  The  eminent  German  scholar  Pauli,  in  his  Life  of  Alfred,  p.  128,  speaks  of 


Lect.  II.  LATIx\  AND   ITALIAN  67 

A  modern  Italian  guide,  in  conducting  the  traveller  over  an 
ancient  field  of  battle,  and  pointing  out  the  positions  of  the 
hostile  forces  —  old  Eomans  and  their  Gallic,  Epirotic  or  Car- 
thaginian enemies-^ will  speak  of  the  Eomans  as  i  nostrali,  our 
troops;  yet  no  man  insists  on  giving  a  common  name  to  the 
Latin  and  Italian,  or  Latin  and  Spanish,  or  Latin  and  Portuguese, 
though  either  of  these  living  languages  is  much  more  closely 
allied  to  the  speech  of  ancient  Eome,  than  is  modern  English  to 
Anglo-Saxon.  It  is  true  we  can  frame  sentences,  and  even  write 
pages  upon  many  topics  without  employing  words  of  Eomance 
or  other  foreign  origin ;  but  none  would  think  it  possible  to  com- 
pose an  epic,  a  tragedy,  a  metaphysical  or  a  critical  discussion 
wholly  in  Anglo-Saxon.  On  the  other  hand,  entire  volumes 
may  be  written  in  either  of  the  three  Southern  Eomance  lan- 
guages on  almost  any  subject,  except  modern  mechanical  and 
scientific  pursuits  and  achievements,  with  as  close  a  conformity 
to  the  Latin  syntax  as  English  construction  exhibits  to  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  at  the  same  time,  without  employing  any  but  Latin 
roots,  and  that  in  so  natural  and  easy  a  style  that  the  omission 
of  borrowed  words  would  never  be  noticed  by  the  reader. 

We  do  not  yet  know  enough  of  the  nature  of  language  to  be 
able  to  affirm  that  the  vocabulary  of  a  given  tongue  has  absolutely 
no  influence  upon  or  connection  with  its  grammatical  structure. 
There  are  facts  which  seem  to  indicate  the  contrary ;  and  when 
we  find,  in  Early  English,  inflectional  and  syntactical  features 
foreign  to  the  genius  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  but  which  had  long 
before  existed  in  the  Latin  or  in  its  Eomance  descendants  most 
favourably  situated  to  exercise  upon  the  speech  of  England  the 
strongest  influence  that  one  language  can  exert  upon  another, 
it  seems  quite  unphilosophical  to  say  that  these  new  character- 
istics were  spontaneously  developed,  and  not  borrowed  from  those 

the  Anglo-Saxon  'vehicle  of  the  laws  *  as  'the  German  language,'  which  he  may 
certainly  do  with  as  great  propriety  as  others  call  the  Anglo-Saxon,  English.  If 
the  language  of  Alfred  was  at  once  G-erman  and  English,  we  must  admit  that  it  is 
not  a  misnomer  to  style  the  dialect  of  Shakspeare,  Platt-Deutsch. 


58  ENGLISH  AND  NOEMAN-FBENCH  Lect.  IL 

older  or  more  advanced  tongues  which  were  then  the  sole 
mediums  of  literary  culture  for  Englishmen. 

The  pride  of  nationality,  if  it  has  not  prompted  the  views  I 
am  criticising,  has  at  least  promoted  their  acceptance,  and  they 
seem  to  me  destitute  of  any  more  solid  foundation.  The  French- 
man might,  with  little  less  show  of  reason,  maintain  that  French  is 
identical  with  the  ancient  Grallic,  or  with  Latin,  or  with  Fr^ncic, 
according  as  he  inclines  to  Celtic,  or  Komance,  or  Gothic  par- 
tialities, and  might  argue  that  the  present  language  of  France 
derives  its  grammatical  character  wholly  from  one  of  them, 
without  having  been  at  all  affected  by  the  inflections  or  the 
syntax  of  the  others.  The  difference  in  the  extent  to  which  the 
tongues  of  England  and  of  France  have  been  affected  by  extra- 
neous influences  is  wholly  a  question  of  degree,  not  of  kind. 
French,  indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  some  linguists,  is  more 
emphatically  composite  than  English.*  Still  its  material  is 
chiefly  Latin,  though  it  may  be  impossible  to  say  how  far  it  is 
based  upon  classical  Latin,  and  how  far  upon  one  or  more  of  the 
unwritten  popular  dialects  usually  spoken  of  collectively  as  the 
lingua  rustica;  but  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt,  that  both 
English  and  French  are,  and  in  all  ages  have  been,  as  suscep- 
tible of  modification  by  external  influences,  as  the  opinions,  the 
characters,  the  modes  of  life  of  those  who  have  spoken  them,  or 
as  any  other  manifestation  of  the  intellectual  activity  of  man. 

It  is  true  that  the  tendencies  of  all  modern  languages  known 
in  literature  are  in  one  and  the  same  direction,  namely,  to 
simplification  of  structure,  by  rejection  of  inflections;  but  this 
is  precisely  the  tendency  that  would  be  impressed  upon  them  by 
the  common  causes,  which,  in  modern  times,  have  operated  alike, 
though  in  different  degrees  of  intensity,  upon  every  people  whose 
history  is  known  to  us.f 

♦  In  the  number  of  syntactical  irregularities,  of  conventional  phrases,  of  ano- 
malous facts  which  are  not  so  much  exceptions  to  particular  rules  as  departures 
from  all  rule,  French  exceeds  every  other  European  language.  Does  not  this  fact 
furnish  some  evidence  of  the  very  heterogeneous  character  of  the  elements  which 
compose  the  present  speech  of  France  ? 

t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XVII.,  p.  367. 


Lect.  II.  ANGLO-SAXON   LANGUAGE  59 

I  cannot  assume  my  audience  to  be  familiar  with  the  lexical 
or  grammatical  peculiarities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  and 
therefore,  inasmuch  as  some  acquaintance  with  the  vocabulary 
and  the  syntactical  structure  of  that  language  is  necessary  to  the 
clear  understanding  of  the  early  history  of  English,  I  hope  I 
shall  be  pardoned  for  something,  both  of  general  discussion  and 
of  dry.  detail  on  these  subjects. 

The  inflectional  system  of  languages  is  in  some  respects  their 
least  important  feature,  for  it  is,  in  the  present  condition  of 
most  tongues  known  in  literature,  their  most  mechanical  and 
least  expressive  characteristic.  We  will,  therefore,  first  inquire 
into  what  is  of  greater  interest :  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
stock  of  words  which  compose  the  raw  material  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  vocabulary. 

Independently  of  the  evidence  afforded  by  its  grammatical 
structure,  a  comparison  of  its  root-forms  with  those  of  Continen- 
tal and  Oriental  vocabularies  shows,  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  be- 
longs to  what  has  been  called  the  Indo-Germanic,  but  is  now 
more  generally  styled  the  Indo-European  family,  and  of  which 
the  Sanscrit  is  regarded  as  at  once  the  oldest  and  most  perfect 
type.  In  its  more  immediate  relations  to  the  modern  languages 
of  Western  Europe,  the  Anglo-Saxon,  as  I  have  more  than  once 
remarked,  is  classed  with  the  Low-Grerman  branch  of  the  Teu- 
tonic, and  has,  therefore,  a  close  lexical  affinity,  not  only  with 
the  many  dialects  known  b}^  the  common  appellation  of  Platt- 
Deutsch,  but  also  with  those  grouped  under  the  denomination  of 
Frisic,  and  with  the  Netherlandish,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called, 
the  Dutch  or  Flemish. 

Its  vocabulary  contains  also  a  considerable  number  of  words 
not  met  with  in  Continental  High  or  Low  Grerman,  but  which 
are  found  in  Celtic  dialects.  The  Celtic  contribution  to  the 
vocabulary,  or,  at  least,  that  portion  of  it  introduced  by  actual 
contact  with  British  Celts  after  the  Conquest,  does  not  appear  to 
have  at  all  modified  the  syntax  or  otherwise  affected  the  struc- 
ture, or,  so  far  as  we  have  reason  to  believe,  the  articulation  of 
the  language.     Hence  it  must  be  considered  as  having  never 


60  LATIN  WORDS  IN  ANGLO-SAXON  Lect.  II. 

entered  into  any  organic  combination  with  it,  or  become  one  of 
its  elementary  constituents ;  but  as  having  remained  a  foreign 
un assimilated  accretion.  Indeed,  there  seems  to  have  always 
existed,  during  the  whole  historical  period,  a  reciprocal  repul- 
sion between  the  Celts  and  all  other  European  families,  and 
their  respective  tongues,  which  have  intermixed  in  a  less  degree 
than  is  usual  between  contiguous  dialects.  This  feeling  of  an- 
tagonism was  particularly  strong  with  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  their 
immediate  descendants,  and  it  finds  very  frequent  expression  in 
every  age  of  English  history.*  Upon  the  whole,  though  the 
speech  of  continental  Grermany  may,  in  remote  ages,  have  been 
affected  to  an  unknown  extent  by  now  extinct  Celtic  dialects, 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  development  and  history 
of  insular  Anglo-Saxon  and  English  have  been  sensibly  modi- 
fied by  any  such  influences. 

There  is  a  class  of  words,  small  indeed,  but  not  unimportant, 
which  are  thought  to  have  been  introduced  into  Britain  by  the 
ancient  Romans,  and  to  have  been  retained  by  the  Celtic  inhabi- 
tants —  or  possibly  by  some  early  colonists,  of  Grothic  blood, 
already  established  in  Britain  at  the  time  of  the  Roman  conquest 
—  and  which  passed  into  the  Anglo-Saxon  dialect,  if  not  before 
the  conversion  of  that  people  to  Christianity,  at  least  very  soon 
after.  One  of  these  is  c ester,  or  coaster,  now  a  common 
ending  of  the  names  of  English  towns,  which  is  the  Latin 
castrum,  a  fortified  camp  or  garrison;  another  is  the  syllable 
coin,  in  the  name  of  the  town  of  Lincoln,  which  is  the  Latin 
colonia,  colony.  Still  another,  probably,  is  cese,  or  cyse, 
cheese,  from  the  Latin  case  us,  for  we  have  reason  to  believe, 
that  in  this  case  both  the  thing  and  the  name  were  made  known 
to  the  Britons  by  the  Romans.f  Street,  also,  may  be  the  Latin 
stratum,  a  paved  way,  and  still  more  probably  may  the  Saxon 
munt,  a  mountain,  have  been  taken  from  the  Latin  mons.     It 

*  See  Illustration  VIII.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

t  See  a  note  on  the  word  cheese  in  the  American  edition  of  Wedgwood's  Ety- 
mological Dictionary. 

See  also  Illustration  IX  at  the  end  of  this  lectiire. 


Lect.  II.  GHEEK  WOKDS  IN   ANGLO-SAXON  61 

would  indeed  seem  that  no  human  speech  could  be  so  poor  in 
words  descriptive  of  natural  scenery  as  to  need  to  borrow  a  name 
for  mountain,  but  there  are  no  mountains  on  or  near  the  conti- 
nental shores  of  the  Grerman  Ocean,  and  hence  the  inhabitants 
of  those  coasts  may  have  had  no  name  for  them. 

But  the  great  majority  of  Latin  words  adopted  by  the  Saxons 
were,  no  doul^t^jd^med  from  Christian  missionaries,  who  at  once 
established  the  Latin  as  the  oScial"  language  of  the  Church,  and, 
to  some  extent,  as  the  medium  of  general  religious,  moral,  and 
intellectual  instruction. 

The  best  Anglo-Saxon  writers  were  purists  in  style,  and  re-  <^ 
luctantly  admitted  Latin  words  into  their  vocabulary.  Hence 
the  number  of  such  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Grospels,  the  works  of 
Alfric  and  of  Alfred,  and,  indeed,  in  all  the  native  literature  of 
England,  so  long  as  Anglo-Saxon  continued  to  be  a  written 
language,  is  very  small.*  This  fact  seems  to  authorise  the  infer- 
ence which  other  evidence  abundantly  confirms,  that  the  large 
introduction  of  Latin  words  into  every  department  of  the  En- 
glish speech,  soon  after  it  became  recognisable  as  a  new  dialect, 
was  due  more  to  secular  Norman-French  than  to  Eomish  eccle- 
siastical influence,  though  the  form  of  the  words  of  Latin  ety- 
mology often  leaves  it  very  doubtful  from  which  of  the  two  lan- 
guages they  were  immediately  borrowed. 

Besides  the  roots  derived  from  these  various  sources,  there  are 
in  Anglo-Saxon  a  small  number  of  words,  such  for  example  as 
circ,  circe,  ciric,  cyric,  or  cyricea,  church,  which  are  sup- 
posed by  some  to  have  been  taken  directly  from  the  Grreek ;  and 
there  are  also  a  few  which  etymologists  have  referred  to  Sclavonic 
roots ;  but  these,  though  interesting  in  ethnological  inquiry,  are 
not  sufficiently  numerous  to  have  perceptibly  affected  the  cha- 
racter of  the  speech,  and  they  are,  therefore,  philologically  un- 
important. 

There  occur  in  Anglo-Saxon  writers,  as  might  naturally  be 
expected  from  the  territorial  proximity  of  the  Germanic  and 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  X.,  p.  199. 


62  VOCABULARY  OF  ANGLO-SAXON         Lkct.  II. 

Scandinavian  tribes,  many  words  belonging  to  the  Old-Northern 
tongue*,  and  a  considerable  number  whose  etymology  is  totally 
uncertain,  but  the  vocabulary  is  in  very  large  proportion 
Germanic,  while  its  composite  character  is  further  shown  by 
the  fact  that  a  greater  number  of  Teutonic  patois  find  their 
analogous,  or  representatives,  in  it  than  in  any  other  one  of  the 
cognate  dialects. 

Thus  much  for  the  proximate  sources  of  Anglo-Saxon,  for 
the  immediate  genealogy  of  its  vocabulary;  but  what  is  the 
essential  character  of  the  words  which  compose  it?  The 
articulation,  the  mere  sound  of  the  words,  is  a  matter  of  little 
importance  in  the  view  I  am  now  taking  of  the  subject,  but 
were  it  of  greater  moment  and  interest,  it  would  be  altogether 
impracticable  to  present  a  satisfactory  view  of  it.  We  know 
Anglo-Saxon  only  as  it  is  written,  and  no  ancient  grammarian 
or  lexicographer  has  recorded  for  us  the  figured  pronunciation 
of  its  vocabulary.  That  it  varied  much  in  different  provinces 
and  centuries  we  may  readily  believe,  and  very  probably  many 
of  the  local  peculiarities  of  utterance  are  faithfully  represented 
in  the  present  provincial  patois  of  different  English  shires. 
The  Norman  influence,  however,  must  have  produced  a  very 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXII.,  p.  471.  I  attach  much  importance  to  the 
remarkable  coincidence  between  the  pronunciation  of  the  languages  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries  and  of  England,  as  an  evidence  that  the  former  had  upon  the 
latter  an  influence  powerful  enough  both  to  introduce  into  it  some  new  phonological 
elements,  and  to  preserve  others  probably  once  common  to  all  the  Gothic  tongues, 
but  which  have  now  disappeared  from  the  articulation  of  the  Teutonic  dialects.  I 
ascribe  the  loss  of  these  sounds  in  those  languages  in  some  measure  to  the  influ- 
ence of  classical  Latin  and  the  Eomance  dialects,  just  as  the  later  suppression  of 
the  th  in  Swedish  and  its  partial  disappearance  in  Danish  may  be  thought  more 
immediately  due  to  the  influence  of  German.  The  lost  sounds  in  German  are 
wanting  in  Latin  and  generally  in  its  modern  representatives,  and  it  is  a  strong 
proof  of  the  tenacious  hold  of  Anglo-Saxon  upon  the  English  organs  of  speech, 
that  it  held  fast  its  \)  and  <S  and  hw  in  spite  both  of  Romish  ecclesiasticism  and 
Norman  conquest.  The  Scandinavian  element  in  English  orthoepy  may  fairly  be 
appealed  to  as  a  confirmation  of  the  statement  of  the  chroniclers  that  the  Jutes  par- 
ticipated largely  in  the  original  Gothic  immigrations ;  for  even  if  the  Jutes  were 
net  of  Old-Northern  blood,  they  had,  from  close  proximity  to  that  race,  very  pro- 
bably adopted  some  of  its  linguistic  peculiarities. 


Iect.  II.  PHONOLOGICAL   INQUIRIES  63 

great  derangement  of  the  native  orthoepy,  if  not  a  total  revolu- 
tion in  it ;  and  if  we  can  rely  on  Mulcaster,  and  Grill,  and  other 
English  orthoepistsof  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
there  have  been  important  changes  in  the  standard  pronuncia- 
tion of  English  within  the  last  two  or  three  hundred  years.* 

Inquiries  into  ancient  modes  of  articulation  are  extremely 
difficult,  and  doubtful  in  result,  not  only  from  the  uncertainty 
which  must  always  exist,  first  as  to  the  extent  to  which  any 
particular  system  of  orthography  was  regularly  phonographic, 
and  secondly,  as  to  the  normal  force  of  single  letters,  the 
standard  sound  of  which  is  only  traditionally  known ;  and 
besides  this,  we  are  embarrassed  by  the  confusion  that  attends 
all  phonological  discussion  in  consequence  of  the  different 
appreciation  of  familiar  sounds  by  different  persons  who  hear 
and  use  them.  We  wrangle  about  the  identity  or  diversity  of 
vowels,  and  even  of  consonantal  sounds  in  our  own  vernacular, 
which  we  have  heard  and  employed  every  day  of  our  lives  ;  and 
pronunciation  itself  is  so  fluctuating  that  we  cannot  rely  upon  the 
traditional  articulation,  even  of  those  sounds  which  seem  most 
constant,  as  sufficient  evidence  of  the  ancient  utterance  of  them.f 

There  is  something  surprising  in  the  boldness  with  which 
philologists  pronounce  on  the  orthoepy  of  dialects  which  have 
been  dead  for  a  thousand  years,  or  which  are  known  to  them 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXII. 

t  See,  on  the  uncertainty  of  the  pronunciation  of  English  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  First  Series,  Lecture  XXII.  In  that  Lecture,  p.  484,  I 
treat  oe  as  representing  the  long  or  name  sound  of  o,  in  Chiu'chyard's  system. 
Doubtless  it  does,  but  upon  further  examination  I  am  not  clear  what  Churchyard 
considered  the  elementary  character  of  the  vowel  to  be,  and  I  am  doubtful  whether 
Ms  long  or  name  sound  was  like  that  of  our  modern  o,  or  like  oo  in  boot.  In  his 
letter  to  Sir  W.  Cecil,  (Chips  concerning  Scotland,  reprint,  1817,  pp.  66 — 69,)  he 
writes  bocld,  inocst,  hocp,  hocll  {whole),  bocth,  Jcnoe  (know),  mocr,  in  all  which  words 
we  give  the  vowel  the  long  o  sound ;  but  he  spells  also  tocA;  whocs,  troctli  {truth), 
which  we  pronounce  with  the  oo  sound,  and  oen  {one)  and  bloed,  where  modern 
English  employs  the  short  w  sound.  Several  of  Churchyard's  contemporaries 
write  with  oo  words  which  we  spell  and  pronounce  with  long  o.  And  as  B.  Jonson 
ascribes  the  sound  of  French  02i  to  o  in  many  words  where  at  present  short  u  is 
heard,  it  seems  almost  impossible  to  determine  what  the  normal  articulation  of 
this  vowel  was. 


64  ANGLO-SAXON   ORTHOGRAPHY  Lect.  1L 

only  by  written  notation.*  It  would  be  very  extravagant  to 
say  that  the  most  learned  phonologist  has  any  means  of  ascer- 
taining the  true  articulation  of  Anglo-Saxon,  or  of  any  form  of 
old  German,  that,  in  any  considerable  degree,  approach  to  the 
facilities  we  at  present  possess  of  learning  any  contemporaneous 
foreign  pronunciation,  French  for  example,  by  the  help  of 
figured  spelling.  But  what  approximation  could  an  Englishman, 
who  had  never  heard  French  spoken,  make  to  the  exact  utter- 
ance of  the  nasals  or  of  the  vowel  and  diphthong  u  and  eu,  or 
how  near  would  a  Frenchman  come  to  the  two  sounds  of  our 
th,  by  the  study  of  written  treatises  alone  ?  In  these  cases, 
indeed,  we  may  very  often  convey  the  true  pronunciation  of  a 
foreign  vowel  or  consonant  by  comparison  with  the  same,  or  a 
very  closely  analogous,  sound  in  a  language  already  known  to 
the  student ;  but  in  our  inquiries  into  extinct  phonologies  we 
have  no  such  guide,  and  our  conclusions,  though  sometimes 
made  very  plausible,  are  nevertheless  extremely  uncertain.f 

The  orthography  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  indigenous 
.  English  words  has  undergone  successive  revolutions,  which  it  is 
not  easy  to  explain  upon  any  supposition  but  that  of  somewhat 
corresponding  changes  in  articulation ;  although  it  must  be 
admitted  that,  if  we  suppose  the  individual  letters  to  have  had, 
in  general,  the  same  force  as  in  our  modern  systemj  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  spelling  of  many  words  more  truly  represents  the  pro- 
nunciation of  to-day  than  our  present  orthography. 

Take,  for  example,  that  peculiar  English  sound,  or  rather 
combination  of  simple  sounds,  which  we  represent  by  ew,  as  in 

*  Halbertsma  speaks  positively  as  to  the  essential  character  of  Anglo-Saxon  vowel 
sounds,  and  yet  admits  that  the  very  people  who  xised  them  were  so  douhtful  as 
to  the  true  articulation,  and  so  variable  in  their  pronunciation,  of  them,  that  they 
did  not  know  how  to  express  them  in  alphabetic  characters.  '  Unable  to  satisfy 
himself,  he  [the  writer]  often  interchanged  kindred  vowels  in  the  same  words,  at 
one  time  putting  a  or  eo,  and  afterwards  oe  and  y.'  And  in  the  next  paragraph  he 
adds :  '  While  the  writer  is  groping  about  him  for  proper  letters,  we  guesS  the 
sound  he  -wished  to  express  by  assuming  some  middle  sound  between  the  letters  he 
employs.' — Halbertsma  in  Bosworih,  Ger.  ^  Scand.  Lang.  p.  37. 
t  See  Illustration  X.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


Lect.  11.  ANGLO-SAXON   ORTHOGRAPHY  ()5 

new,  and,  in  other  cases,  by  the  vowel  u,  as  in  tube.  Now  an 
attentive  analysis  of  this  sound  will  show  that,  without  regard 
to  the  semi-consonantal  y,  which  is  introduced  immediately  after 
the  consonant  preceding  the  u,  it  is  composed  of  two  articula- 
tions so  rapidly  pronounced  as  almost  to  coalesce  into  one.  '  So 
near  as  this  coalescence  of  sounds  is  capable  of  resolution,  the 
first  is  the  short  sound  of  i  in  pin,  the  second  is  the  semi- 
consonantal  lu.  This  class  of  syllables  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
to  some  extent  early  English  writers,  spelt  with  hu  instead  of 
ew  or  u.  Thus  hue,  complexion,  clew  or  clue,  new,  brew,  in 
Anglo-Saxon  are  spelt  respectively,  hiw,  cliwe,  niwe,  briw. 
So  the  word  rule  —  which  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  are  to 
consider  of  native  or  foreign  extraction — in  the  Ancren  Kiwle, 
a  code  of  early  English  monastic  precepts,  is  written  rhvle*  In 
these  cases  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Old  English  spelling  appears 
to  be  more  truly  phonographic  than  the  modern. 

If  we  assume  that  there  is  a  general  resemblance  between 
the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  modern  English  pronunciation  of  the 
words  which  are  spelt  substantially  alike  in  both,  we  are  driven 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  former  must  have  differed  very  re- 
markably in  articulation  from  the  contemporaneous  Germanic 
dialects  ;  and  this  would  be  a  strong  argument  in  favour  of  the 
position  that  it  was  widely  distinct  from  any  of  them.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  we  suppose  that  Anglo-Saxon  resembled  any 
Continental  language  of  its  own  era  in  sound,  we  must  conclude 
that  our  English  pronunciation  of  Saxon  words  has  been  changed 
to  a  degree  very  difficult  to  account  for.f  It  has  been  suggested 
that  many  important  points  of  difference  between  Anglo-Saxon 
and  English  pronunciation  on  the  one  hand,  and  Grerman  and 

*  At  present,  it  preceded  by  r,  j,  or  I,  in  the  same  syllable  is,  according  to  most 
orthoepists,  pronounced  oo,  so  that  rule  rhymes  with  pool.  This  pronunciation  has 
arisen  from  the  difficulty  of  articulating  the  semi-consonantal  y  between  the  r,  j, 
or  I  and  the  tc;  but  the  orthography  riwlc,  and  other  like  evidence,  show  that  this 
was  not  the  ancient  orthoepy,  nor  is  it  now  by  any  means  universal  among  good 
speakers. 

t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXII.,  p.  471. 

P 


66  PRONUKCIATION  OP  ENGLISH  Lhct.  II. 

Scandinavian  on  the  other,  are  due  to  the  Celtic  element  in  the 
former ;  but  it  is  incredible  that  a  language,  which  has  added 
little  to  the  vocabulary,  and  in  no  appreciable  degree  modified 
the  syntax  of  either,  should  have  produced  any  sensible  effect 
upon  the  pronunciation;  and  besides,  it  does  not  appear  that 
there  is  any  such  resemblance  between  the  articulation  of 
the  Celtic  and  the  neighbouring  Saxon  and  English  dialects, 
that  one  can  be  reasonably  supposed  to  have  influenced  the 
other. 

There  is,  indeed,  one  way  in  which  English,  though  hardly 
Saxon,  orthoepy  has  probably  been  modified  by  comparatively 
modern  Celtic  influences.  French  philologists  maintain  that 
the  pronunciation  of  the  Latin,  in  becoming  the  speech  of  the 
French  people,  must  have  accommodated  itself  to  the  organs 
and  habitual  utterance  of  a  nation  which  if  not  strictly  Celtic, 
tad  certainly  a  large  infusion  of  Celtic  blood.  The  modifica- 
tions thus  introduced  constituted  a  permanent  and  normal  part  of 
old  French  articulation,  and  have  consequently,  so  far  as  French 
influence  is  perceptible  at  all  in  English  pronunciation,  given  a 
special  character  to  that  influence. 

There  are  several  points  in  which  national  pronunciation  may 
be  affected  by  foreign  influence.  The  essential  character  of 
vowels  or  consonants  may  be  changed,  or  the  temporal  quantity 
of  the  former  lengthened  or  shortened  ;  sounds  long  established 
may  be  dropped  altogether,  or  new  ones  introduced ;  the  accen- 
tuation of  words  or  classes  of  words  may  be  deranged,  or  finally 
the  predominant  periodic  accent  or  emphasis  may  be  shifted. 

This  last  revolution  is  usually  connected  with  a  change  of 
syntactical  arrangement,  and  a  familiar  illustration  will  show 
how  the  Anglo-Saxon  periodic  accent  may  have  taken,  and  in 
many  cases  doubtless  did  take,  a  new  position  in  passing  into 
English.  In  short,  direct  propositions,  if  there  be  no  motive 
for  making  another  word  specially  prominent,  the  verb  in  most 
languages  usually  takes  the  emphasis :  Thus,  English,  I  saiu 
him;  Danish,  j eg  sacte  ham:  but  French,  je  le  vis;  Italian 


Lkct.  II.  CHANGES   IN   EMPHASIS  67 

io  lo  vidi,  the  periodic  accent,  in  each  case,  resting  on  the 
verb,  in  whatever  part  of  the  phrase  it  is  placed.  As  a  result 
of  this  and  other  analogous  rules,  every  language  has  its 
peculiar  modulation,  depending  much  upon  its  syntax,  and  a 
change  of  verbal  arrangement  involves  a  change  in  that  modu- 
lation. We  see  the  effects  of  the  habit  of  emphasizing  the 
period  at  a  particular  point,  in  the  pronunciation  of  persons 
who  are  learning  foreign  languages.  A  Frenchman  just  begin- 
ning to  speak  English  will  be  sure  to  say,  I  saw  Aim,  instead  of 
I  saw  him,  because,  the  verb  coming  last  in  French,  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  say,  je  le  vis.  If  we  could  suppose  that 
by  means  of  a  greater  influx  of  French  syntactical  forms,  the 
places  of  the  verb  and  the  object  should  be  reversed  in  the  Eng- 
lish period,  so  that  in  the  phrase  I  have  cited,  him  should  pre- 
cede saw,  we  should  learn  to  sa}-,  I  him  saiu,  not  I  him  saw,  and 
thus  the  periodic  accent  or  emphasis  would  be  transferred  from* 
the  last  but  one  to  the  last  word  in  the  phrase. 

Now,  something  like  the  converse  of  this  change  actually  did 
take  place  in  the  transition  of  Anglo-Saxon  into  English ;  for, 
though  the  position  of  both  the  nominative  and  of  the  oblique 
cases  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  was  variable,  yet  the  latter,  es- 
pecially at  the  end  of  a  period  or  member  of  a  period,  more 
frequently  preceded  than  followed  the  verb,  and  therefore  '  I 
him  saiv,^  would  oftener  be  heard  than  '  I  saiu  him.'  * 

*  As  the  case,  not  only  of  the  pronoun,  which  in  English  remains  throughout 
declinable,  but  of  the  noun,  which  in  English  has  no  objective  or  accusative  form, 
was  indicated  by  the  ending  in  Anglo-Saxon,  it  was  grammatically  indifferent 
whether  either  the  nominative  or  the  oblique  case  preceded  or  followed  the  verb. 
But  when,  by  the  loss  of  the  inflection  of  the  noun,  the  syntax  became  positional, 
the  prepositive  place  was  assigned  to  the  nominative,  the  postpositive  to  the 
objective.  By  this  arrangement  we  have  lost  an  elocutional  advtmtage  which  the 
Anglo-Saxon  possessed.  In  reading  or  speaking,  the  voice  is  sustained  until  the 
emphatic  word  of  the  proposition,  or  member,  is  pronounced,  after  which  it  sinks 
and  becomes  comparatively  inaudible.  The  verb  is  generally  an  emphatic,  if  not 
the  most  emphatic  word  in  the  sentence ;  and  hence  if  it  be  reserved  to  end  the 
period,  the  whole  proposition  will  be  more  intelligibly  pronounced,  and  therefore 
strike  the  listener  more  forcibly,  than  if  the  verb  occur  at  an  earlier  point.  The 
best  Anglo-Saxon  writers  show  much  dexterity  in  availing  themselves  of  the 
liberty  of  arrangement  which  the  structure  of  their  language  allowed. 

F  2 


68  DIFFERENCES  IN  PRONUNCIATION  Lect.  II. 

In  fact,  the  whole  subject  of  the  difference  in  the  articulation 
of  cognate  dialects  spoken  by  nations  exposed  to  similar,  if  not 
identical  influences,  has  been  hitherto  not  sufficiently  investi- 
gated ;  and  the  principles  of  phonology,  the  radical  analysis  of 
articulate  sounds,  must  be  better  understood  than  they  now  are 
before  any  very  satisfactory  explanations  of  the  causes,  or  even 
any  very  accurate  statement  of  the  facts,  can  be  arrived  at. 

We  find  between  the  Swedish  and  Danish,  for  example,  closely 
allied  as  they  are  in  vocabulary  and  structure,  not  merely  dis- 
crepancies in  the  pronunciation  of  particular  words,  for  which 
an  explanation  might  sometimes  be  suggested,  but  radical  and 
wide-reaching  differences  of  articulation,  which  no  known  facts 
connected  with  the  history  of  either  throw  much  light  upon, 
unless  we  adopt  the  theory  of  a  greater  ancient  diversity  between 
those  dialects  than  exists  in  their  present  condition.  Thus  the 
Swedes  pronounce  the  consonants  in  general,  as  well  as  the 
vowels,  with  a  distinctness  of  resonance  which  justifies  the  boast 
of  Tegner,  that  the  ring  of  Swedish  is  as  clear  as  that  of  metal* ; 
while  the  Danes  confound  and  half  suppress  the  consonants,  and 
split  up  the  well-discriminated  vowels  of  the  Old-Northern  into 
a  multitude  of  almost  imperceptible  shades  of  less  energetic  and 
expressive  breathings. 

In  like  manner,  the  Portuguese  and  Castilian,  which  have 
grown  up  under  not  widely  dissimilar  circumstances,  are  cha- 
racterised, the  former  by  an  abundance  of  nasals,  and  by  the  sh 
and  zh  (ch  and  j),  which  the  Spanish  wants  altogether, —  the 
latter  by  gutturals  and  lisping  sounds,  which  are  unknown  to 
the  Portuguese. 

The  recovery  of  the  true  pronunciation  of  Anglo-Saxon  would 
be  important,  because  it  would  facilitate  etymological  research 
by  the  comparison  of  its  radicals  with  those  of  languages  em- 
ploying other  orthographical  systems;  and  it  would  be  conve- 
nient for  the  purposes  of  academical  instruction  and  oral  quota- 
tion: but  the  present  state  of  phonology,  which,  like  other 
*^"  Eeu,  6om  malmens,  din  klang. 


Lect.  II.  PRONUNCIATION   OF  ANGLO-SAXON  69 

branches  of  linguistic  knowledge,  is  hurrying  to  conclusions 
before  the  necessary  facts  are  accumulated,  does  not  authorise 
us  to  expect  that  we  shall  soon  attain  to  a  very  precise  know- 
ledge of  its  articulation,  or  be  able  to  trace  the  steps  by  which 
its  accents  have  been* changed  into  those  of  modern  English. 

Inasmuch  as  the  Anglo-Saxpns  learned  the  art  of  writing  from 
Roman  missionaries,  the  presumption  is  strong  that  their  alpha- 
betic notation  corresponded  nearly  with  the  contemporaneous 
orthography  of  Eome,  and  hence  that  the  departures  of  English 
pronunciation  from  the  sounds  indicated  by  the  Latin  vowels 
and  consonants  in  Continental  usage  are  comparatively  recent 
innovations  in  the  orthoepy  of  the  Anglican  tongue.* 

*  Althougli  the  runic  characters  were  employed  by  some  of  the  Germanic  as 
well  as  Scandinavian  tribes  before  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  they  were  known  to  the  Anglo-Saxons  untU  a  much  later  period. 
The  only  Anglo-Saxon  character  which  resembles  the  corresponding  runic  letter  is 
l>,  and  we  know  not  when  either  this  character  or  the  JS  were  introduced  into  that 
alphabet.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Scandinavians  borrowed  the  5  from  the 
Anglo-Saxons.  The  earlier  Christianisation  of  this  latter  people,  and  their  known 
missionary  efforts,  render  this  probable  enough ;  but  the  Old-Northern  races  dis- 
tinguished these  two  letters  much  more  accurately  than  their  insular  neighbours, 
while  the  Anglo-Saxons  employed  them  with  a  confusion,  v/hich  seems  to  indi- 
cate more  indistinct  notions  of  their  value  than  we  should  expect  if  either  of 
them  was  of  their  own  invention.  Old-Northern  literature  shows  no  trace  of 
Anglo-Saxon  influence,  and  the  instances  of  the  use  of  grammatical  forms  resem- 
bling the  Anglo-Saxon  in  early  Scandinavian  writings,  or  rather  inscriptions,  are 
too  few  and  too  uncertain  to  authorise  the  inference  that  they  were  the  fruits  of 
such  influence. 

There  is  little  reason  to  believe  that  the  Scandinavians  themselves  ever  employed 
the  runes  for  what  can  properly  be  called  literary  purposes.  They  wrote  incanta- 
tions, carved  calendars  and  brief  inscriptions,  in  these  letters,  but  it  remains  to  bo 
proved  that  either  the  mystic  lays  or  the  prose  sagas  of  that  people  were  ever 
written  down  at  all  before  Christian  missionaries  introduced  into  Scandinavia  a 
new  religion  and  a  new  alphabet. 

The  fact  that  the  Old-Northern  bards  were  well  understood  at  the  courts  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  and  other  similar  evidence,  tend  to  show  that,  though 
the  Old-Northern  and  Saxon  were  not  regarded  as  the  same  speech,  yet  they  must 
have  much  resembled  each  other  in  articulation.  The  Icelandic  vowel-sounds,  for 
the  most  part,  coincide  with  the  Latin  —  though  the  accented  vowels  of  the  Old- 
Northern  appear  to  have  had  a  diphthongal  pronunciation  unknown  to  any  of  the 
alphabets  of  Southern  Europe — and  here  we  have  a  further  argument  in  support 
of  the  general  resemblance  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Continental  vowels. 

Eask  supposes  the  orthographic  accents  to  have  lengthened  the  vowel  in  Anglo- 


70  PRONUNCIATION   OF   ANGLO-SAXON  Lect.  II. 

Saxon,  and,  in  some  cases,  to*  have  changed  its  quality,  but  not  to  have  made  it 
diphthongal ;  and  I  believe  it  is  generally  considered  simply  as  a  sign  of  prosodical 
length,  not  of  stress  of  voice.  Biit  Craik  —  whose  History  of  English  Literature 
and  of  the  English  Language  did  not  become  known  to  me  until  after  the  text  of 
this  volume  was  prepared  for  the  press  —  argues  in  a  note  on  p.  297,  vol.  i.  of  that 
work,  that,  in  some  casea  at  least,  the  unaccented  vowel  had  the  name  or  long 
sound,  while  the  accented  vowel  was  pronounced  short.  Bosworth,  Origin  of  Ger. 
and  Scand.  Lang.,  p.  37,  speaks  of '  the  diphthongal  nature  of  the  whole  system  of 
Anglo-Saxon  vowels.'  Indeed,  there  are  very  fair  arguments  to  prove  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  accents  indicated  prosodical  length  and  that  they  did  not,  that  the 
vowels  were  diphthongal  and  that  they  were  not ;  and  we  may  as  well  confess 
what  we  cannot  conceal,  namely,  that  we  know  next  to  nothing  at  all  on  the 
subject. 

There  are  many  cases  where  the  diphthongal  character  of  an  English  vowel  is 
the  result  of  a  coalescence  between  two  vowels  which,  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  early 
English,  belonged  to  different  syllables.  In  the  word  0W7i,  the  w  stands  for  the 
Anglo-Saxon  j,  which  in  modern  English  is  usually  represented  by,  and  pro- 
nounced as,  either  y  or  g,  though  in  other  cases  it  has  been  succeeded  by  w,  or  by 
gh,  with  its  strange  variety  of  articulation.  The  w,  then,  is  not  an  element  in  the 
diphthongal  sound  of  the  o,  in  this  particular  word,  and  o  has  precisely  the  same 
sound  in  very  many  syllables  where  it  is  not  followed  by  w  or  by  a  vowel.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  word  for  own,  adj.,  was  aren,  sometimes  spelled  a;  an,  which  was  a 
dissyllable.  In  the  Ormulum  it  is  spelled  a^henn,  in  old  English  awen,  awun,  owen, 
owun,  and  was,  as  prosody  proves,  pronounced  in  two  syllables.  The  latter  forms 
very  easily  pass  into  own,  or  on,  with  the  diphthongal  6,  and  the  origin  of  the 
diphthongal  sound  in  very  many  English  long  vowels  may  be  traced  to  a  similar 
crasis. 

I  may  here  observe,  what  should  have  been  stated  before,  that,  in  printing  Anglo- 
Saxon,  I  omit  the  accents,  because  they  are  wanting  in  very  many  of  the  best 
MSS.  and  printed  editions,  because  the  uncertainty  of  their  value  would  only 
embarrass  readers  whom  I  suppose  not  to  be  masters  of  the  language,  and  be- 
cause I  should,  by  employing  them,  increase  the  chances  of  errors  of  the  press  in 
printing  a  volume  the  proofs  of  which  I  shall  not  have  an  opportunity  to 
correct. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


I.  (p.  43.) 

OATHS  OF  LOUIS  OP  GERMANY,  AND  OP  CERTAIN  FRENCH  LORDS  SUB- 
JECTS OF  CHARLES  THE  BOLD,  SWORN  AT  STRASBURG,  A.D.  842. 

The  text  of  tlieso  oaths,  as  given  by  different  authorities,  varies  considerably. 
I  print  from  Burgny,  Grammaire  de  la  Langue  d'Oil,  1853,  vol.  i.  p.  19. 

A. 

OATH   OF   LOUIS   OF   GERMANY. 

Pro  Deo  amur  et  pro  christian  poblo  et  nostro  commun  salvament, 
d'ist  di  in  avant,  in  quant  Deus  savir  et  podir  me  dunat,  si  salvarai  eo 
cist  meon  fradre  Karlo  et  in  ajudha  et  in  caduna  cosa,  si  cum  cm  per 
dreit  son  fradra  salvar  dift,  in  o  quid  il  mi  altresi  fazet,  et  ab  Ludher 
nul  plaid  nunquam  prindrai,  qui,  meon  vol,  cist  meon  fradre  Karle  in 
damno  sit. 

B. 

OATH  OF  THE  FRENCH  LORDS. 

Si  Lodhuwigs  sagranient,  que  son  fradre  Karlo  jurat,  conservat,  et 
Karlus  meos  sendra  de  suo  part  non  lo  stanit,  si  io  returnar  non  Tint 
pois,  ne  io  ne  neuls,  cui  eo  returnar  int  pois,  in  nulla  ajudha  contra 
Lodhuwig  nun  li  iuer. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  point  to  be  noticed  in  these  monuments 
is  the  use  of  the  futures  salvarai  and  prindrai  in  the  oath  of  Louis. 
There  is  much  evidence  to  prove  that  the  modern  Komance  future  is  a 
coalescent  formation  (see  First  Series,  Lecture  XV.,  p.  336) ;  but  we 
have  here  very  nearly  the  present  French  future  in  this  oldest  specimen 
of  the  language.  It  is,  however,  certainly  a  new  inflection,  whatever 
may  be  its  origin;  for  the  Latin  salvabo  could  never  have  become 
salvarai.  The  orthographical  combination  dh  in  ajudha  in  both 
oaths  is  remarkable,  as  probably  indicating  that  the  d  was  aspirated  or 
pronounced  S,  in  that  word  and  in  other  similar  combinations. 


72  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTHATIONS  LecT.  II. 

11.  (p.  47.) 

USE  OF  PARTICIPLES   IN   GOTHIC  LANGUAGES. 

The  participle  absolute  often  occurs  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  gospels. 
Thus,  in  Matthew  i.  20 :  Him  ]>a  soSlice  l^as  fing  fencendum, 
Vulgate,  Hffic  autem  eo  cogitante.  In  the  Lindisfarne  gospels  we 
have  the  double  foim,  6as  soSlice  ^e  he  Sencende  +  '8ohte, 
M-hich  shows  that  the  translator  hesitated  betAveen  the  Latin  construc- 
tion, 8as  soSlice  he  tJencende,  and  the  more  idiomatic  (5as  so61ice 
'Se  he  Sohte.  The  Rush  worth  text  gives,  8endi  he  ]?a  f  j^ohte, 
and,  fis  sodlice  he  j^ohte,  not  venturing  upon  the  participial  con- 
'struction  at  all.  The  older  WyclifRte  text  has :  Sothely  hym  thenkynge 
these  thingus ;  the  later,  But  while  he  thoujte  thes  thingis.  In  this 
particular  case,  the  more  modern  translations  all  employ  the  verb ;  but, 
nevertheless,  the  absolute  participial  construction  has  become  established 
in  English  syntax;  and  nobody  scruples  to  write  :  The  weather  becoming 
fine,  we  started  on  our  journey ;  The  season  proving  severe,  and  the 
roads  being  impracticable,  the  troops  went  into  winter- quarters ;  though 
it  must  be  admitted  that  this  form  is  less  freely  used  in  the  colloquial 
dialect. 

The  present  or  active  participle  in  older  Anglo-Saxon  is  very  gener- 
ally, and,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  uniformly,  used  either  with  an 
auxiliary  verb  in  such  constructions  as  tvas  pursuing,  or  as  an  adjective 
or  descriptive  epithet,  or  as  a  noun.  In  this  latter  case,  it  is  often  a 
compound  of  a  noun,  and  a  participle  which  originally  may  have 
governed  the  noun ;  and  its  employment  as  a  technical  participle  in  a 
dependent  or  an  independent  phrase  (which  is  so  very  common  in  Latin 
and  Greek),  is  at  least  exceedingly  rare,  if,  indeed,  it  occurs  at  all,  in 
Beowulf  or  in  Ctedmon.  In  the  Anglo-Saxon  gospels,  and  in  later 
writers,  this  construction  is  very  frequent,  and  we  in  English  still  say : 
Seeing  my  way  clear,  I  went  on  with  my  project;  Having  large  means 
at  his  disposal,  he  gave  liberally. 

I  see  no  reasonable  ground  for  doubting  that  these  constructions 
were  borrowed  from  the  Latin  and  incorporated  into  the  Anglo-Saxon 
as  a  new  syntactical  element ;  and  if  so,  they  are  cases  of  a  mixture  of 
grammars. 

I  am  aware  that  the  active  participle  is  employed  by  Ulfilas  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Latin  and  Greek  usage,  and  that  it  is  oft;en  found  in 
interlinear,  word-for-word,  Anglo-Saxon  translations  from  the  Latin. 
But  the  very  closeness  with  which  the  translation  of  Ulfilas  corre- 
£5ponda  to  the  grammatical  construction  of  his  original  is  a  suspicious 


Lect.  II.  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  73 

circumstance ;  and  whatever  changes  the  translator  or  his  copyists  may 
have  made  in  the  original  arrangement  of  the  words,  I  think  no  person, 
who  has  practised  the  art  of  translation  enough  to  be  a  competent  judge 
on  the  subject,  can  doubt  that  Ulfilas  rendered  the  Greek,  first,  word  by 
word,  and  not  sentence  by  sentence.  These  participial  constructions 
are  so  adverse  to  the  general  syntax  of  all  the  Gothic  tongues,  and  they 
so  completely  failed  to  secure  adoption  in  those  which  had  created  a 
literature  before  translations  of  the  Scriptures  were  attempted  in  them, 
that  I  think  we  are  justified  in  believing  that,  in  the  employment  of 
these  constructions,  Ulfilas  was  following  the  idiom  of  the  Greek,  and 
not  of  his  own  language. 

I  admit  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  compound  participial  nouns,  in  which 
the  noun-element  may  have  been  originally  an  accusative  governed  by 
the  participle,  give  some  countenance  to  the  supposition  that,  in  an 
earlier  stage  of  the  language,  the  active  participle  was  used  as  a  techni- 
cal verbal  Ibrm ;  but  that  construction  had  certainly  become  nearly,  if 
not  altogether,  obsolete  before  the  translation  of  the  gospels,  if  indeed 
it  ever  existed.  These  compounds  are  as  easily  explicable  upon  the 
theory  that  the  participial  element  was  used  as  a  noun,  as  upon  that  of 
their  having  a  regimen ;  and  I  think  that  this  is  their  true  etymological 
history.  I  am  too  well  aware  of  the  difliculty  of  proving  a  negative  to 
afiirm  that  no  case  of  true  participial  construction  exists  in  primitive 
Anglo-Saxon,  but  I  know  of  none  where  the  active  participle  is  not 
used  as  a  noun,  as  an  adjective,  or  as  a  descriptive  adverb.  This  last 
employment  of  this  part  of  speech  occurs  in  older,  and  sometimes  in 
modern  Danish;  as,  han  kom  ridendes,  he  came  riding??/;  hun 
kommer  kjorendes,  she  comes  driving/?/.  In  German,  curiously 
enough,  the  passive  participle  is  employed  in  such  cases;  as  er  kam 
geritten,  sie  kommt  gefahren.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  admirable 
Danish  Bible  of  1550,  as  well  as  in  Christian  Pedersen's  earlier  New 
Testament,  the  active  participle  used  as  an  adjective  (and  it  is  not  em- 
ployed otherwise  than  adjectively  or  adverbially),  has  the  same  ending; 
but  at  present,  when  a  descriptive,  it  ends  in  e,  and  the  genitival  s  is 
added  only  in  adverbial  constructions. 

The  opinion  of  even  J.  Grimm  respecting  the  Frisic  language,  and 
the  facts  on  which  those  opinions  are  founded,  may  be  cited  in  proof  of 
the  possibility  of  linguistic  amalgamation.  That  great  grammarian 
observes,  Gesch.  der  D.  S.,  680  (472) :  '  Die  friesische  sprache  halt 
eine  mitte  zwischen  angelsiichsischer  und  altnordischer,'  and  p.  668 
(464)  :  '  In  denkmiilern  aus  der  mhd.  und  mnl.  zeit  erscheint  sie  noch 
mit  formen,  die  sich  den  altsachsischen  und  althochdeutschen  an  die 


74  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  IL 

seite  stellen ;  die  abgeschiedenheit  des  volks  hat,  beinahe  wie  auf  Island, 
den  alten  sprachstand  gehegt,  und  man  ist  zu  dem  schlusz  berechtigt, 
dasz  von  dem  raittelalter  riickwarts  bis  zum  beginn  des  neunten  jh., 
wo  im  lateinischen  volksreclit  einzelne  friesische  worter  begegnen,  und 
von  da  bis  zur  zeit  der  Romer,  in  der  friesischen  sprache  verhaltnis- 
maszig  weniger  veriinderungen  eingetreten  sein  werden,  als  in  jeder 
aindern  deutschen.  auch  in  don  jetzigen  friesischen  dialecten  daiiert  noch 
viel  alterthumliches,  wiewol  auf  den  westfriesischen  die  niederliindische, 
auf  den  ostfriesischen  die  nieder-und  hochdeutsche,  auf  den  nordfrie- 
ftischen  die  niederdeutsche  und  danische  sprache  starken  einflusz  geiibt 
haben.'  Now  this  influence  of  the  neighbouring  languages  on  the 
Frisic  is  not  confined  to  the  vocabulary,  but  extends  to  grammatical 
forms  and  constructions,  and,  beginning  on  either  the  Netherlandish,  the 
Low-German,  or  the  High-German  frontier  of  the  Frisians,  you  may 
pass,  sometimes  by  almost  imperceptible  gradations,  but,  in  the  case  of 
districts  separated  by  physical  barriers,  often  by  more  abrupt  transitions, 
from  any  of  the  first-mentioned  languages  to  a  Frisian  dialect  containing 
'  viel  alterthumliches,'  and  thence,  by  a  like  succession  of  steps,  through 
the  Germanised  Danish  of  southern  Jutland,  to  the  less  mixed  Scandi- 
navian of  the  Baltic  islands. 


III.  (p.  47.) 
FOEEIGN   CONSTEUCTIONS  IN   ENGLISH. 

Some  of  these  borrowed  forms  in  English  have  been  supposed  to  be 
of  Scandinavian  rather  than  of  Norman-French  extraction.  I  think 
it  more  probable  that  they  are  derived  from  the  latter  source,  because 
they  did  not  make  their  appearance  in  England  until  after  the  Norman 
Conquest.  So  far  as  the  general  question  of  the  possibility  of  mixed 
grammar  is  concerned,  it  is  of  little  consequence  whether  we  ascribe 
them  to  Scandinavian  or  to  Romance  influence,  so  long  as  the  fact  that 
they  are  foreign  constructions  is  admitted. 

In  Icelandic,  and  in  Swedish  and  Danish,  the  comparative  of  adjec- 
tives may,  under  certain  circumstances,  be  formed  by  the  equivalent  of 
more,  but  the  superlative  is  always  an  inflection,  and  not,  as  in  the 
Romance  languages,  formed  by  the  comparative  adverb  with  the 
article. 

The  Icelandic  did  not  express  the  possessive  or  genitive  relation  by 
a  preposition.  The  Old-Northern  af  always  took  the  dative,  and  is 
translated  in  Latin  by  ab,  de,  or  ex.     The  modern    Scandinavian 


liECT.  IT.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  75 

dialects  use,  in  many  cases,  a  preposition  as  the  sign  of  the  possessive 
or  genitive,  and  they  present  some  curious  coincidences  with  English 
in  the  use  of  the  particle.  Neither  the  Danish  nor  the  English  employs 
the  preposition  af,  of,  as  a  sign  of  the  genitive,  with  all  nouns  indis- 
criminately. In  English,  we  may  say :  '  a  man  of  intelligence,  of 
learning,  of  capacity,'  but  not,  '  a  field  of  fertility.'  In  the  latter  case 
we  can  use  the  particle  only  with  the  adjective,  as :  '  a  field  of  (jreat 
fertility.'  So,  asMolbech  observes,  in  Danish,  *en  Mandaf  Opdra- 
gelse,  af  LsErdom,  af  Dygtighed,'  not,  'en  Ager  af  Frugt- 
barhed,'  though  we  may  say  :  'en  Ager  af  stor  Frugtbarhed.' 
In  both  languages,  where  the  jjreposition  is  used  directly  with  the 
noun,  a  moderate  degree  of  the  quality  ascribed  is  very  often  expressed, 
and  hence  we  may  suppose  that  an  adjective  of  limitation  is  understood. 

The  Old-Northern,  as  well  as  its  modern  representatives,  use  a 
particle  before  the  infinitive  much  as  in  English,  and  sometimes  two, 
til  at  with  an  infinitive  being  found  in  Icelandic,  as  well  as  til  at  and 
for  at  in  Danish.  This  corresponds  with  the  vulgar  English /or  <o, 
as, /or  to  go.  It  is  said  that  the  infinitive  with  aet  occurs  in  the  Nor- 
thumbrian gospels  and  rituals.  I  am  not  disposed  to  dispute  the  fact, 
though  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  an  example  of  this  construction  in 
the  printed  texts.  But  however  this  may  be,  this  form  is  not  the 
origin  of  the  English  infinitive  with  to,  which  can  clearly  be  traced  back 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  gerundial.  It  should  be  noticed  that  to  wyrce, 
which  occurs  in  the  Cambridge  edition  of  the  Lindisfarne  text  of  St. 
Matthew  xii.  2,  as  an  alternative  for  to  doanne,  is  probably  either  a 
misprint,  or  an  error  of  the  scribe,  for  to  wyrcenne,  arising  from  the 
fact  that  the  next  word  is  insunnadagum  (printed  in  one),  the  first 
syllable  of  ■^\'hich,  in,  so  closely  resembles  ne  in  manuscript  as  to  have 
led  to  the  omission  of  the  latter  by  the  copyist. 

It  is  a  not  improbable  suggestion,  that  some  of  the  Romance  con- 
structions, to  which  I  have  referred  the  corresponding  English 
forms,  are  themselves  of  Gothic  origin,  for  all  Europe  was  exposed  to 
Gothic  influences  at  the  period  of  the  formation  of  the  Bomance 
languages. 


^ 


76  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  II. 

rV.  (p.  52)  and  illustration  V.  (p.  80.) 
COMPARISON  OF  OLD  GERMAN  DIALECTS. 


THE   lord's   prayer  IN   DIFFERENT   GERMANIC   DIALECTS. 

1. 

LOW  GERMAN. 

A. 

Moeso-Gothic  of  Ulfilas.   Fourth  Century.   From  Stamm's  edition,  1858,  p.  C. 

Atta  ufisar,  ]>\i  in  himinam,  veihnai  namo  pein.  Qimai  Jjiudinassus 
J)eins.  Vairfai  vilja  pcins,  sve  in  himina  jah  ana  air])ai.  Hlaif  unsarana 
f  ana  sinteinan  gif  uns  liimma  daga.  Jali  aflet  iins,  ]  atei  skulans 
sijaima,  svasve  jah  veis  afletam  J)aim  skulam  unsaraim.  Jah  ni 
briggais  uns  in  frastubnjai,  ak  lausei  uns  af  ])anima  ubilin ;  unte  peina 
ist  fiudangardi  jah  mahts  jah  vulf us  in  aivins.     Amen. 

B. 

Old-Saxon  of  the  Heliand.  Ninth  century.  Alliterative  and  rhythmical  para- 
phrase.   From  Schmeller's  text,  1830,  p.  48. 

Fadar  if  ufa*  firiho  bamo.  the  if  an  them  hohon* 

himilarikea.     Geuuihid  fi  thin  namo* 

uuordo  gehuuilico.  cuma  thin  craftag  riki. 

Uuerda  thin  uuilleo*  obar  thefa  uuerold. 

al  fo  fama  an  erdo.  fo  thar  uppa  iff  an  them  hohon* 

himilrikea.     Gef  uf  dago  gehuuilikel  rad' 

drohtin  the  godo.  thina  helaga  helpa. 

Endi  alat  uf  hebenes  uiiard*  managoro  mensculdio. 

al  fo  uue  odrum  mannum  doan.     Ne  lat  ul  farledean* 

letha  imihti.     So  ford  an  iro  uuilleon* 

So  uTii  uuirdige  find.     Ac  help  uf  uuidar  allnn* 

ubilon  dadiun. 

C. 

Anglo-Saxon  alliterative  and  rhythmical  paraphrase.  Grain's  Text,  ii.  285. 
Age  of  MS.  not  stated. 

[Halig]  fader,  ]>u  J^e  on  heofonum  eardast 

geve[orSad]  vuldres  dreame  !     Sy-  ))inum  veorcum  halgad 

noma  niSSa  beamum  !  J>u  eart  nergend  vera. 


t 


Lect.  n.  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  77 

Cyme  ]^in  rice  vide  and  ]?in  raedfast  villa 

arared  under  rodores  hrofe,  edc  pon  on  riimre  foldan  ! 

Syle  us  to  diige  domfastne  blsed, 

lilaf  Ciserne,  helpend  vera, 

})one  singalan,  s66fast  meotod  ! 

Ne  loet  usic  costunga  cnyssan  to  svide, 

ac  )m  us  freadom  gief,  folca  valdend, 

from  yfla  gehvam  a  to  vidan  feore  ! 

D. 

Anglo-Saxon  from  the  New  Testament,  Matthew  vi.  9 — 13.  Text  of  the 
University  Edition,  Cambridge,  1858.     Age  of  MS.  not  stated. 

Feeder  lire  pu  pe  eart  on  heofenum,  Si  pin  nama  gehalgod  .  To-becume 
pin  rice  .  GewurSe  ])in  willa  on  eorSan,  swa  SAva  on  heofonum  .  Urne 
ged£eghwamlican  lilaf  syle  us  to  da3g  .  And  forgyf  us  lire  gyltas  swa 
swa  we  forgyfaS  lirum  gyltendum.  And  ne  gelasd  J?u  us  on  costnunge, 
ac  alys  us  of  yfele  :  SoSlice. 

E. 

Platt-Deutsch  or  Sassesch.  Sixteenth  century.  JFrom  Bngenhagen's  version  of 
Luther's  High-German  translation,  text  of  1541.     Magdeburg,  1545. 

Vnse  Vader  in  dem  Hemmel.  Dyn  Name  werde  gehilliget.  Dyn 
Eike  kame.  Dyn  Wille  geschee,  vp  Erden  alse  im  Hemmel.  Vnse 
dachlike  Brod  giif  vns  hiiden.  Vnd  vorgifF  vns  vnse  Schlilde,  alse 
vy  vnsen  Schlildeners  vorgeuen.  Vnd  vore  vns  niclit  in  Vorsokinge, 
sunder  vorlose  vns  van  dem  ouel  ,  wente  dyne  ys  dat  Eyke  ,  vn  de 
KrafFt ,  vfi  de  Herlicheit  in  Ewicheit ,  Amen. 


HIGH   GERMAN. 
A. 

From  Otfrid's  Krist.    Ninth  century.    Ehymed  paraphrase.    Graff's  Text,  1831, 
p.  163. 

Fater  unfer  giiato  .  bift  driilitin  thu  gimiiato  . 

in  himilon  io  holier  .  uuih  li  namo  thiner  . 
Biqueme  uns  thinaj  richi  .  thaz  hoha  liimilrichi  . 

tiiara  iiuir  zua  io  gingen  .  ioli  emmizigcn  tliingen  . 
Si  uuillo  thin  hiar  nidare  .  fof  er  ift  ufan  himile  . 

in  ^rdu  hilf  uns  hiare  .  fo  thu  engilon  duift  nu  thare  . 


78  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  liECT.  II. 

Thia  dagalichun  ziihti  .  gib  hiutu  uns  mit  giniihti . 

ioh  lolion  ouh  theift  mera  .  thines  felbes  lera  . 
Sciild  bilaz  uns  dllen  .  fo  uuir  ouh  duan  uuoUen  . 

fiinta  thia  uuir  thenken  .  ioh  ^mmizigen  uuirken  . 
Ni  firldze  unfih  thin  uuara  .  in  thes  uuidaruuerten  fara, 

thaz  uuir  ni  miffigangen  .  thar  ana  ni  gifallen  . 
L6(i  unfih  io  thanana  .  thaz  uuir  fin  thine  thegana. 

B. 

Luther's  translation,  from  Stier  and  Tliiele,  1854,  after  the  edition  of  1544, 
p.  21. 

Unser  Vater  in  dem  Himmel,  dein  Name  werde  geheihget,  dein 
Reich  komme,  dein  Wille  geschehe  auf  Erden  wie  im  Himmel,  unser 
taglich  Brot  gib  uns  heute,  und  vergib  uns  unsere  Schulden  wie  wir 
unsern  Schuldigern  vergeben  und  fiihre  uns  nicht  in  Versuchung, 
soudern  erlose  uns  von  dem  Uebel :  denn  dein  ist  das  Reich  und  die 
Kraft  und  die  Herrlichkeit,  in  Ewigkeit,  Amen  ! 

I  here  insert  several  Semi-Saxon  and  old  English  versions  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  not  for  their  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  divergence 
of  dialects,  but  because  it  is  convenient  to  have  all  the  translations  of 
the  Paternoster  together,  for  the  purpose  of  tracing  the  changes  in 
EngUsh. 

From  a  MS.  of  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Reliquiae  An- 
tiquse,  I.  235. 

Fader  ure  Satt  art  in  hevene  blisse, 

Sin  hege  name  itt  wurSe  bliscedd^ 

Cumen  itt  mote  Si  kingdom, 

din  hali  wil  itrbe  al  don, 

In  hevene  and  in  erSe  all  so. 

So  itt  sail  ben  fill  wel  ic  tro  ; 

Gif  us  alle  one  Sis  dai 

Ure  bred  of  iche  dai 

And  forgive  us  ure  sinne 

Als  we  don  ure  wiSerwinnes ; 

Leet  us  noct  in  fondinge  falle, 

Ooc  fro  ivel  Su  sild  us  alle.     Amen. 

From  a  MS.  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Reliquiae  Antiquse,  i.  282. 
Fader  cure  l>at  art  in  heve,   i-halgeed  bee  \>i  nome,  i-cume  l>i 
kinereiche,  y-worthe  \)i  wylle  also  is  in  hevene  so  be  on  erthe,  oure 


LEcr.  11.  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  79 

ich-dayes-bred  gif  us  to-day,  &  forgif  us  our  gultes,  also  we  forgifet 
cure  gultare,  &  ne  led  ows  nowtli  into  fondingge,  auth  ales  ows  of 
harnie.     So  be  hit. 

From  a  MS.  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Reliquiae  Antiquse,  i.  57. 
Ure  fader  in  hevene  riclie, 
\>i  name  be  lialiid  ever  i-liclie, 
J)u  bringe  us  to  \n  micliil  blisce, 
J>i  wille  to  wirclie  ]ni  us  wisse, 
Als  hit  is  in  hevene  i  do 
Ever  in  eorj)e  ben  it  al  so, 
fat  holi  bred  fat  leste]?  ay 
fu  send  hit  ous  |>is  ilke  day, 
Forgive  ous  alle  fat  we  havif  don, 
Als  we  forgivet'uch  ofir  man, 
Ne  lete  us  falle  in  no  fondinge, 
Ak  scilde  us  fro  fe  foule  f inge. 

From  Wycliife's  New  Testament.     Oxford,  1850.     Matthew  vi.  9—13. 

Oure  fadir  that  art  in  heuenes,  halwid  be  thi  name  ;  thi  kyngdom 
cumme  to  ;  be  thi  wille  don  as  in  heuen  and  in  erthe  ;  ^if  to  vs  this 
day  ouer  breed  oure  other  substaunce ;  and  forjeue  to  vs  oure  dettis 
as  we  forjeue  to  oure  dettours ;  and  leede  vs  nat  in  to  temptacioun, 
but  delyuere  vs  fro  yuel.     Amen. 

From  Purvey's  recension,  same  edition. 

Oure  fadir  that  art  in  heuenes,  halewid  be  thi  name ;  thi  kingdoom 
come  to ;  be  thi  wille  don  in  erthe  as  in  heuene ;  jyue  to  vs  this  dai 
oure  breed  ouer  othir  substaunce  ;  and  forjyue  to  vs  oure  dettis  as  we 
forgyuen  to  oure  dettouris ;  and  lede  vs  not  in  to  temptacioun,  but 
delyuere  vs  fro  yuel.     Amen. 

From  Tyndale's  Testament.     1526.    Reprint.    Boston,  1837. 

O  oure  father  which  art  in  heven,  halowed  be  thy  name.  Let  thy 
kingdom  come.  Thy  wyll  be  fulfilled,  as  well  in  erth,  as  hitys  in  heven. 
Geve  vs  this  daye  our  dayly  breade.  And  forge ve  vs  oure  treaspases 
euen  as  we  forgeve  them  which  treaspas  vs.  Leede  vs  not  into  tempta- 
tion, but  delyvre  vs  from  yvell.     Amen. 

In  comparing  the  versions  of  the  Heliand  and  of  Otfrid  with  each 
other  and  with  the  other  specimens,  allowance  must  be  made  for 


80  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  II. 

variations  due  to  their  poetical  forms,  for  the  paraphrastical  character 
of  both,  and  perhaps  for  differences  of  orthographical  system ;  but 
after  all  deductions,  there  still  remain  parallel  words  and  forms  enough 
to  serve  as  a  reasonably  satisfactory  test  of  the  logical  and  grammatical 
resemblance  and  diversities  between  the  Low-German  dialect  of  the 
former  and  the  High-German  of  the  latter,  as  also  between  the  poetical 
Old-Saxon  of  the  Heliand,  the  Anglo-Saxon  of  the  text  from  Grein, 
and  the  prose  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Testament. 

Between  the  Platt-Deutsch  or  modern  Saxon  of  Bugenhagen  and  the 
High-German  of  Luther  the  parallelism  is  perfect,  the  one  being  a 
translation  from  the  other,  and  of  course  the  correspondence  is  almost 
equally  close  between  the  Moeso-Gothic  of  Ulfilas,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Testament,  and  the  Platt-Deutsch  of  Bugenhagen,  all  of  which  belong 
to  the  Low-  German  branch  of  the  Teutonic. 

Li  comparing  these  monuments  of  the  Teutonic  language  in  different 
dialects  and  from  different  chronological  periods,  I  do  not  find  prooi 
that  at  remote  historical  periods  the  dialects  of  the  German  speech 
were  *  less  plainly  distinguished  than  in  later  eras.'  On  the  contrary,  it 
appears  to  me  that  the  great  divisions  of  the  language  were  much  less 
widely  separated  in  the  sixteenth  century  than  in  the  ninth.  So  far  as 
the  evidence  deducible  from  Ulfilas  goes,  the  distance  must  have  been 
greater  still  in  the  fourth  century,  and  consequently  the  dialects  appear 
to  approximate  as  they  advance,  diverge  as  they  ascend. 

It  is  true  that,  in  order  to  arrive  at  conclusive  results,  much  more 
extended  comparisons  must  be  made,  but  I  think  that  an  examination 
of  Hildibrand  and  Hadubrand,  Muspilli,  Notker,  the  numerous  philo- 
logical monuments  in  Haupt's  Zeitschrift,  and  Graff's  Diutiska, 
especially  the  ancient  vocabularies  and  interlinear  glosses  of  the  Middle 
Ages, — for  example,  the  glossary  in  Graff,  1.  128,  et.  seq.,  from  two 
MSS.  of  the  eighth  century, — cannot  fail  to  strengthen  the  inference  I 
draw  from  the  diffierent  texts  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

V.  (pp.  41,  52.) 

OLD   GEEMAN   DIALECTS. 

This,  I  am  aware,  is  contraiy  to  the  opinion  of  J.  Grimm,  who 
says,  Gesch.  der  D.  S.  834 :  "  Zur  zeit,  wo  deutsche  sprache  in  der 
geschichtc  auftritt  ....  ihre  eignen  dialecte  scheinen  unbedeu tender 
und  unentschiedcner  als  in  der  folge."  In  a  certain  sense,  the  German 
language  makes  its  appearance  in  history  in  the  classic  ages  of  Greek 
and  Roman  literature,  that  is,  the  language  is  often  spoken  of,  and  a 


Lect.  II.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATTONS  81 

few  proper  and  common  nouns  belonging  to  it  are  recorded  by  the 
writers  of  those  periods.  But  these  few  remains  give  us  no  notion 
whatever  of  the  inflexional  or  syntactical  system  of  the  language,  or  of 
the  mutual  relations  of  its  dialects,  and  consequently  no  means  of 
comparing  or  estimating  the  discrepancies  of  those  dialects.  On  the 
former  point  Ulfilas  furnishes  us  our  earliest  information,  and,  of  course, 
our  first  knowledge  of  any  Germanic  speech  dates  from  the  fourth 
century.  We  have  no  contemporaneous  or  nearly  contemporaneous 
remains  of  any  cognate  dialect,  except  a  few  single  words  from  which 
no  safe  conclusions  can  be  drawn,  and  hence  we  know  nothing  of  the 
resemblances  or  diversities  between  the  different  branches  of  the 
Teutonic  speech  at  that  period.  The  assertion,  then,  that  the  German 
dialects,  at  our  first  historical  acquaintance  with  that  language,  '  appear 
to  have  been  less  broadly  distinguished  than  afterwards,'  is  a  pure 
conjecture  sustained  by  no  known  fact.  For  comparisons  of  the  early 
and  modern  Germanic  speeches,  see  illustration  IV.  at  end  of  this  lecture. 


VI.  (p.  52.) 

SCANDINAVIAN   LANGUAGES. 

There  is  strong  evidence  to  prove  an  identity  of  speech  in  all  £he 
Scandinavian  countries  at  the  commencement  of  their  literature,  or 
rather  to  show  that,  in  spite  of  local  differences  of  dialect,  the  language 
was  regarded  as  one  by  those  who  used  it.  The  testimony  on  this 
subject  will  be  found  in  the  preface  to  Egilsson's  Lexicon  Poeticum 
Antiquse  Linguas  Septentrionalis,  where  all  the  passages  in  Old-Northern 
literature  which  bear  on  the  question  are  collected.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  comparison  of  the  diction  of  the  manuscripts  establishes  rather 
a  diversity  than  a  unity  of  language  at  the  earliest  period  to  which  they 
reach.  We  have  no  manuscripts  in  any  of  the  Scandinavian  dialects 
older  than  the  tAvelfth,  in  all  probability  none  older  than  the  thirteenth 
century,  though  very  many  of  the  works  found  in  these  manuscripts 
are  of  much  earlier  date,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  judged  by  internal 
evidence,  more  or  less  faithfully  conformed  to  a  more  primitive  ortho- 
graphy and  grammar.  In  original  manuscripts,  or  contemporaneous 
copies,  of  works  composed  in  Denmark  and  Sweden  as  early  as  the 
oldest  existing  codex  of  any  Icelandic  author,  there  occur  numerous 
words,  forms,  and  constructions  which  are  more  closely  allied  to  those  of 
the  modern  dialects  of  those  countries  than  to  the  vocabulary  and 
grammar  of  the  Old-Northern.     It  has  been  hence  argued,  that  the 

G 


82  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lkct.  II. 

Danish  and  Swedish  are  descended,  not  from  the  Old-Northern  of  the 
Icelandic  writers,  but  from  cognate  parallel  dialects  of  equal  antiquity. 
The  evidence  from  the  runic  inscriptions  found  in  the  Northern  King- 
doms  many  of  which  are  believed,  and  some  almost  certainly  knov/n 

to  be  much  more  ancient  than  any  extant  manuscript  in  any  Scandina- 
vian dialect  —  although  their  orthography  is  very  variable  and  uncertain, 
points  to  the  sam€  conclusion.  The  strictly  common  origin,  then,  of 
the  Icelandic,  Swedish,  and  Danish,  though  very  generally  admitted,  is 
not  absolutely  proved,  and  my  -own  language  on  this  subject  in  my  First 
Series,  Lecture  XVIL,  p.  368  and  elsewhere,  must  be  taken  with  some 
qualification.  But  the  error,  if  it  be  an  error,  was  not  material  to  my 
argument  in  the  passages  referred  to,  for  the  essential  fact  still  subsists, 
namely,  that  while  the  Icelandic,  protected  from  foreign  influences  by 
the  almost  complete  social  and  literary,  as  well  as  physical  isolation  of 
the  people  which  uses  it,  has  undergone  little  change,  the  Danish  and 
Swedish,  on  the  contrary,  have  departed  from  their  earlier  forms  to  an 
extent,  and  in  directions,  proportionate  to,  and  determined  by,  the 
amount  and  character  of  the  alien  influences  to  which  they  have  been 
respectively  exposed.  The  Swedish  is  still  essentially  a  Scandinavian 
tongue,  in  both  words  and  forms,  but,  though  the  Danes  have  preserved 
the  principal  characteristics  of  their  ancient  grammar,  their  vocabulary 
is  lamentably  denationalized. 

See  Molbech's  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Danish  language,  in  the 
last  edition  of  his  Danish  Dictionary,  1859. 


VII.  (p.  54.) 
DIVERGENCE   OF  DIALECTS. 

I  beg  not  to  be  misunderstood  as  covertly  arguing,  in  any  of  the 
foregoing  remarks,  against  the  received  opinion  of  -a  common  origin  of 
the  whole  human  race.  I  am  not  a  convert  to  the  opposite  theory,  nor 
do  I  profess  to  be  competent  to  weigh  the  purely  physical  evidence  on 
this  question ;  but  the  force  of  truth  is  always  weakened  when  it  is 
sustained  by  unsound  arguments,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  in 
my  judgment,  the  evidence  derivable  from  actual,  as  distinguished  from 
conjectural  linguistic  history,  does  not  support  the  doctrine  of  the  unity 
and  common  descent  of  the  human  species. 

The  opinion  I  have  advanced  of  the  divergence  of  languages  as  we 
follow  them  up  to  their  earliest  recorded  forms,  and  their  convergence 
as  they  descend,  is  not  irreconcilable  with  the  well-established  fact  of 


Lect.  il  notes  and  illustrations  83 

the  tendency  of  every  Immau  speech  to  self-division,  and  the  progres- 
sive development  of  dialects  under  certain  circumstances.  Whenever 
a  homogeneous  people  with  a  common  tongue  is  divided  into  separate 
and  unconnected  tribes,  by  emigration,  by  local  changes  in  religious  or 
political  institutions,  or  by  any  of  the  numerous  causes  which  break  up 
large  nations  into  smaller  fragments,  the  speeches  of  the  different  mem- 
bers of  the  race  become  distinct,  not  by  virtue  of  laws  of  repulsion 
and  divergence  inherent  in  the  language  itself,  but  just  in  proportion  to 
the  character  and  energy  of  the  new  circumstances  under  which  the 
separate  divisions  of  the  family  are  placed,  and  the  degree  in  which  the 
communication  between  them  is  interrupted. 

Now,  admitting  that  all  men  are  descended  from  a  single  pair,  these 
divisions  of  nation  and  of  tongue  must  have  been  very  common  at  that 
primitive  period  when  agriculture  and  art  did  not  yet  admit  of  density  of 
population,  and  when  for  the  children  of  every  swarming  hive, 

*  The  world  was  all  before  them,  where  to  choose 
Their  place  of  rest,' 

and  hence  the  primitive  language  or  languages  were  soon  split  up  into  a 
multitude  of  patois,  more  or  less  unlike  to  each  other  and  to  their  com- 
mon source.  These  are  events  of  which  human  annals  have  preserved 
only  scanty  and  imperfect  records ;  but  the  dialectic  changes,  produced  by 
emigration  and  colonisation  within  the  historical  period,  are  sufficiently 
well  knoAvn  to  enable  us  to  conceive  of  the  extent  of  the  linguistic  revo- 
lutions which  must  have  occurred  in  remoter  eras.  But  from  the  most 
ancient  date  to  which  authentic  profane  records  extend,  the  general  ten- 
dency of  human  political  society  has  been  towards  increased  communi- 
cation, intermixture,  confusion,  and  amalgamation  of  races  and  tongues. 
Hence,  during  this  period  —  the  only  period  through  which  Ave  can 
trace  the  history  of  language  with  any  approach  to  certainty  —  all  influ- 
ences, with  the  exception  of  those  of  emigration  and  analogous  causes  of 
little  comparative  importance,  have  co-operated  to  produce  a  constantly 
increasing  convergence  of  the  more  widely  diifused  dialects,  and  an 
extirpation  of  the  less  important  and  more  narrowly  limited  patois. 
While  then  it  is  theoretically  not  improbable  that  the  age  of  general 
approximation  was  preceded  by  a  long  period  of  general  divergence  of 
tongues,  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  conclusion  is  mere  matter  of 
inference  from  analogy,  and  by  no  means  an  established  fact ;  for  all  that 
history  teaches  us  is,  that  the  further  we  go  back  the  wider  was  the 
diversity  of  speech  among  men.  '  Tout  ce  que  nous  savons  des  langues 
aux  epoques  les  plus  voisines  de  leur  origine,'  says  Fauriel,  '  nous  lea 

G  2 


84  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  II. 

montre  divis^es  en  dialectes  et  sous-dialectes  peu  6tendus.  II  faut,  pour 
Ics  ainener  h  I'linite,  pour  le3  y  fondre,  d'immenses  eveneinents  et  nn 
temps  tres-long  relativement  a  la  vie,  je  ne  dis  pas  des  individus  et  des 
families,  mais  des  peuples,'  &c.  Fauriel  Dante  et  la  Langue  Italienne, 
1854,  ii.  303. 

The  proposition,  that  languages  descended  from  the  same  stock  are 
incapable  of  grammatical  mixture,  seems  to  me  to  involve  a  contradic- 
tion, and  at  last  to  lead  inevitably  to  the  conclusion  against  which  I  am 
protesting.  It  assumes  that  speeches  derived  from  a  common  original, 
and  developed  from  it  by  organic  law,  independently  of  external  lin- 
guistic influences,  become,  by  the  action  of  this  common  law  of  their 
being,  so  diverse  from  each  other  in  structure  and  specific  nature,  that 
although  they  still  retain  the  essential  characteristics  of  their  common 
parent,  no  alliance  or  coalescence  between  them  is  possible.  This  is  at 
variance  with  all  that  organic  physiology  has  taught  us,  and  if  the 
alleged  repugnance  and  irreconcilability  be  admitted,  we  must  resort 
to  the  hypothesis  of  an  independent  creation  for  every  known  language. 
I  am  not  prepared  to  adopt  this  hypothesis,  but,  at  the  same  time,  I 
admit  that  in  the  phenomena  of  language  considered  by  themselves, 
and  without  reference  to  theological  doctrines  or  ethnological  theories, 
I  do  not  find  any  serious  objection  to  it ;  and  if  I  believed  in  the  impos- 
sibility of  grammatical  mixture,  permanent  linguistic  hybridism,  I 
should  find  myself  compelled  to  espouse  it. 

None  but  the  followers  of  the  school  of  which  Darwin  is  now  the  most 
conspicuous  teacher  infer,  from  similarity  of  structure,  a  community  of 
origin  between  different  organic  species  of  the  same  genus  in  a  particu- 
lar country,  or  between  representative  species  in  different  countries. 
By  most  botanists,  oaks,  between  which  no  constant  difference  can  be 
pointed  out  except  in  the  shape  of  the  cup  of  the  acorn,  are  maintained 
to  be  specifically  distinct,  and  not  descended  from  a  common  stock. 
Why,  then,  is  it  not  equally  probable  that  the  community  of  nature  in 
man  has  produced  any  number  of  languages  closely  resembling  each 
other,  but  not  genealogically  related  ?  In  comparing  very  many  species 
of  plants  and  animals,  the  points  of  coincidence  are  vastly  more  numerous 
and  important  than  those  of  difference,  but  while  a  slight  divergence  in 
noi-mal  type  is  held  to  establish  a  specific  diversity  in  the  tree  or  the 
quadruped,  an  enormous  discrepancy  in  vocabulary  and  syntax  is  not 
considered  as  disproving  community  of  origin  in  languages.  If  language 
be  considered  as  a  gift  from  an  external  source  —  a  machine  with  a 
certain  limited  range  of  movements  —  it  is  difficult  to  get  rid  of  the 
theory  of  hereditary  or  rather  traditional  descent ;  but  if  we  regard  it 


-I 


Lect.  II.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  85 

as  an  organic  product,  a  natural  result  of  the  constitution  and  condition 
of  man,  and  not  as  an  assemblage  of  arbitrary  or  conventional  symbols, 
it  follows  that  lexical  or  grammatical  resemblances  in  languages  no 
more  prove  their  original  identity  than  a  certain  coincidence  in  struc- 
ture and  function  of  organ  establishes  a  consanguinity  between  all  the 
species  of  the  genus  felis  in  quadrupeds,  or  the  descent  of  all  the  plants 
embraced  under  the  generic  term  ^cws  from  a  single  germ. 

VIII.  (p.  60.) 

ANTIPATHY   BETWEEN    SAXONS   AND   CELTS. 

Not  to  speak  of  earlier  and  less  familiar  instances,  I  may  refer  to  the 
quaintly  ludicrous  account  of  the  Irish  and  of  the  four  wild  kings  caught 
and  tamed  by  Richard  11. ,  in  Froissart  (who  of  course  was  speaking  the 
sentiments  of  his  English  friends);  to  Stanihurst's  Ireland,  in  Ilolinshed; 
to  Wren's  papers,  quoted  in  the  notes  to  Wilkins's  edition  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne;  and  finally  to  Pinkerton,  who  argued  so  stoutly  the  inferiority  of 
the  Celtic  race  :  *  Show  me  a  great  O','  said  he,  '  and  I  am  done.'  These 
opinions  of  course  are  not  authorities,  nor  worth  citing  for  any  purpose 
except  as  expressions  of  a  feeling  which,  as  we  have  abundant  evidence, 
has  been  entertained  by  all  the  non- Celtic  inhabitants  of  England,  from 
the  Saxon  invasion  to  the  present  day ;  and  this  is  an  important  fact, 
because  it  tends  to  explain  why  English  has  borrowed  so  few  words  from 
any  existing  forms  of  the  Celtic.  If  the  Celtic  Britons  were  a  Christian 
people  at  the  time  of  their  subjugation  by  the  Saxons,  to  the  extent 
which  their  advocates  maintain,  and  had  the  culture  Avhich  has  every- 
where accompanied  the  diffusion  of  Christianity,  they  could  not  have 
failed  to  propagate  that  religion  among  their  conquerors,  unless  an  in- 
vincible obstacle  was  found  in  the  mutual  antipathy  between  the  nations. 
But  the  Anglo-Saxons  were  converted  by  missionaries  from  Rome,  and 
the  same  cause  which  prevented  the  incorporation  of  any  considerable 
portion  of  the  Celtic  vocabulary  into  the  Saxon  speech  —  whether  the 
intellectual  inferiority  of  the  Celt  or  the  hatred  of  race  —  prevented  also 
the  adoption  of  the  Christian  religion  by  the  invaders. 

IX.  (p.  60.) 

CELTIC   ETYMOLOGIES. 

Koenen,  De  Nederlandsche  Boerenstand  Historisch  Beschreven,  p.  17, 
following  Boot,  ascribes  a  Latin  origin  to  the  Dutch  words  akker, 
ager,  zaad,   satum,   hooi-vork,    furca,    juk,   jugum,   wan, 


86  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  II. 

vannus^  dorschvlegel,  Jlagellum,  sikkel,  secular  spade, 
s  path  a.  Every  one  of  these  words,  and  others  of  the  same  class, 
such  as  cult  or,  cutter,  or  conlter,  are  found  in  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the 
argument  is  equally  strong  to  show  that  that  language  took  them  from 
the  same  source. 

The  generally  inferior  culture  of  the  Celtic  to  the  Latin  and  Gothic 
races  would  afford  a  presumption  that  the  Celts  also  had  borrowed  from 
the  Konians  such  of  these  words  as  occur  in  their  speech.  But  the 
curious  and  almost  unnoticed  fact  of  the  existence  of  reaping-machines 
among  the  Gauls,  stated  by  the  elder  Pliny,  shows  an  advanced  condition 
of  both  agricultural  and  mechanical  art  in  that  people,  and,  of  course, 
authorises  us  to  suppose  that  they  had  a  proportionately  complete  rural 
vocabulary.  The  probability  is  that  most  of  the  words  in  question 
belong  to  an  earlier  period  of  human  speech  than  that  of  the  existence 
of  any  language  identifiable  as  distinctly  Celtic,  Gothic,  or  Italic. 

I  have  elsewhere  adverted  to  the  probability  that  many  words  alleged 
to  be  Celtic  were  of  Latin  origin,  and  that  in  many  cases,  roots  supposed 
Celtic  are,  as  probably,  Gothic.  Mr.  Davies  says  that  cart  is  Welsh 
from  cdr,  a  dray  or  sledge,  but  as  I  have  observed  in  a  note  on  the 
word  ca7't,  in  the  American  edition  of  Wedgwood,  cart  occurs  in  the 
Norse  Alexandur's  Saga,  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  may,  therefore, 
with  equal  plausibility,  be  claimed  as  Gothic.  Gown  has  been  supposed 
to  be  of  Welsh  origin,  but  as  this  word  is  found  in  medieval  Greek  and 
Latin,  as  well  as  in  Old-French  and  Italian,  it  is  a  historical,  not  an 
etymological  question,  to  what  stock  it  belongs.  See  Du  Cange  gun  a, 
2.  gunna,  gonna,  gouna,  gunella.  The  Welsh  gwn,  to  which  it  is 
referred,  is  said  to  mean  toga,  but,  as  a  question  of  radical  etymology, 
more  probable  sources  for  gown  may  be  found  elsewhere ;  for  the  name 
of  so  complex  a  garment  is  not  likely  to  be  a  primitive.  Garnett 
thinks  harrow  is  Welsh  berfa,  button,  W.  botwm,  crook,  W.  crog, 
tenter,  W.  deintur,  ivain,  W.  gwain,  pan,  W.  pan,  solder,  W. 
sawduriaw,  &c.,  &c.  But  is  not  barrow  more  probably  the  A.  S. 
berewe  from  be  ran  to  carry  ;  button  the  French  bout  on,  a  bud  or 
knob,  from  bouter,  to  push  or  sprout;  crook  cognate  with  Icelandic 
krokr,  a  hook;  tenter  from  the  Latin  tendere,  to  stretch  ;  ivain,  the 
Gothic  wagen,  vagn;  pan,  the  Gothic  paniia,  pande,  pfanne; 
and  especially  solder,  which  is  found  in  all  the  Romance  languages,  the 
Latin  solidare,  from  solidus,  used  by  Pliny  in  the  precise  sense,  to 
solder?  These  are  purely  questions  of  historical  etymology,  and  we 
can  no  more  determine  them  by  comparison  of  forms,  than  we  can 
prove  by  the  linguistic  character  of  the  name  Alfred,  that  that  prince 
had,  or  had  not  a  real  existence. 


Lkct.  IL  notes   and   ILIUSTRATIONS  87 

X.  (p.  64.) 

DIFFICULTY   OF   APPRECIATINa   FOREIGN    SOUNDS. 

Persons  whose  attention  has  not  been  specially  drawn  to  the  subject 
are  little  aware  of  the  difficulty,  I  will  not  say,  of  imitating  or  of 
writing  down,  but  even  of  hearing  the  peculiar  sounds  of  foreign 
languages.  An  anecdote  may  serve  to  illustrate  this.  There  is  a 
Persian  word  in  very  common  use  throughout  the  East  —  bakhsheesh 
—  meaning  a  gift  or  a  present.  It  is  the  equivalent  in  meaning  of  the 
Old-English  largess,  and  is  employed  by  the  attendants  on  greal;  men 
and  strangers,  when  giils  are  made  or  expected,  in  just  the  same 
way.  The  Turkish  articulation  of  all  words  is  exceedingly  distinct, 
and  this  particular  word,  bakhsheesh,  which  every  traveller  in  Turkey 
hears  a  hundred  times  a  day,  is  uttered  with  an  unction  that  makes  it 
very  impressive  to  the  ears  of  a  stranger ;  hence  one  would  imagine 
that  its  true  pronunciation  would  be  readily  seized  by  the  obtusest  ear. 
Notwithstanding  this,  a  distinguished  gentleman  who  had  passed  most 
of  his  life  in  foreign  lands,  and  had  spent  many  years  at  Constantinople 
in  a  diplomatic  capacity,  was  unable  to  come  any  nearer  to  the  sound 
of  bakhsheesh  than  bactshtasch.  He  thus  writes  in  one  of  his  published 
letters  :  *  There  is  only  one  word  in  all  my  letters  which  I  am  certain, 
(however  they  may  be  written),  of  not  having  spelt  wrong,  and  that  is 
the  word  bactshtasch,  which  signifies  a  present.  I  have  heard  it  so 
often,  and  my  ear  is  so  accustomed  to  the  sound,  and  my  tongue  to  the 
pronunciation,  that  I  am  now  certain  I  am  not  wrong  the  hundredth 
part  of  a  whisper  or  lisp.  There  is  no  other  word  in  the  Turkish,  so 
well  impressed  on  my  mind,  and  so  well  remembered.  Whatever  else 
I  have  written,  bactshtasch  !  my  earliest  acquaintance  in  the  Turkish 
language,  I  shall  never  forget  7/ou  !  ' —  Constantinople  and  its  Environs, 
in  a  series  of  letters,  by  an  American  long  resident.  N.  Y.  1835.  II. 
p.  151. 

If,  then,  persons  of  fair  intelligence  are  liable  so  strangely  to  pervert 
the  sounds  of  foreign  words  which  they  have  heard  and  used  for  years^ 
what  can  any  man's  opinions  be  worth  on  the  sounds  of  a  language 
which  he  never  heard  at  all  ? 


I^ECTUEE  III. 


ANGLO-SAXON  VOCABULAEY,   LITERATURE,   AND   GRAMiMAR. 

In  order  to  a  just  estimate  of  the  capacities  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  tongue,  we  must  pass  from  the  forms  and  sounds  of  its 
words,  the  sensuous  impressions  they  produce  on  the  organ  of 
hearing,  to  their  significance,  their  power  of  communicating 
fact  and  exciting  emotion,  which  constitutes  the  essence  of 
human  speech. 

We  must  here  admit  that  our  knowledge  of  Anglo-Saxon  is 
not  such  as  to  enable  us  to  pronounce  on  this  point  with  as 
much  certainty  as  in  the  case  of  many  other  languages,  dead  as 
well  as  living.  The  extant,  or  at  least  printed,  literature  of 
that  tongue  is  not  sufficiently  extensive  and  varied  in  subject 
and  in  treatment  to  furnish  us  with  the  true  and  only  means 
we  can  ever  possess  of  learning  the  actual  force  of  words, 
namely,  observation  of  their  use  at  different  periods,  in  different 
combinations,  and  by  different  writers,  and  we  therefore  do  not 
understand  an  Anglo-Saxon  book  as  we  do  a  work  in  a  living 
foreign,  or  even  an  ancient  classical,  language.*  True  the 
close  alliance  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  English  helps  i:s 
to  run  through  Anglo-Saxon  narrative  works,  and  simple 
homilies   like   those  of  Alfric.  with  great  ease:  but  wnen  we 

*  Anglo-Saxon  lexicography  was  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  condition  until  the 
appearance  of  Bosworth's  learned  and  laborious  dictionary,  which  was  a  very  timely 
and  important  addition  to  pur  facilities  for  studying  the  ancient  mother  tongue  of 
England.  The  glossaries  to  Schmid's  Gesetze  der  Angel-Sachsen,  and  to  Grein's 
Bibliothek  der  Angel-Sachsischen  Poesie,  are  also  extremely  valuable  contributions 
to  the  same  branch  of  philology.  But,  after  all,  word-books  cannot  go  beyond 
their  authorities,  and  a  fragmentary  literatiire  can  have  but  imperfect  lexicons. 


Lect.  III.  CAPACITIES  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  89 

take  an  Anglo-Saxon  poem  in  hand,  we  interpret,  not  read  our 
author,  and  no  man  can  make  himself  as  much  at  home  in 
Beowulf  and  Csedmon  as  a  good  Grrecian  may  in  Homer.* 

But  imperfect  as  is  our  knowledge  of  nice  distinctions  and  eva- 
nescent shades  of  meaning  in  Anglo-Saxon  words,  we  can  say, 
with  confidence,  that  in  the  highest  quality  of  speech,  the  power 
of  varied  expression  upon  moral  and  intellectual  topics,  this 
language  was  certainly  not  inferior  to  any  other  of  the  Grothic 
stock. 

In  estimating  its  capacities  in  this  respect,  we  are  not  to 
compare  it  with  the  modern  Scandinavian  and  Teutonic  tongues, 
which  have  received  centuries  of  culture  since  Anglo-Saxon 
became  extinct,  but  with  those  languages  at  periods  when  they 
had  enjoyed  a  much  inferior  amount  of  Christian  and  classic 
influence.  Christianity  was  introduced  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 
in  the  sixth  century,  into  those  parts  of  Grermany  with  which 
the  Anglo-Saxons  were  most  nearly  connected,  some  centuries 
after  the  emigration  of  that  people,  and  into  Scandinavia  and 
Iceland  not  far  from  the  year  1000,  though  some  small  progress 
had  been  made  by  Christian  missionaries  in  Denmark,  Norway, 
and  Sweden  at  an  earlier  period.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  run 
a  parallel  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  of  the  age  of  Csedmon, 

*  It  may  seem  a  trifling,  but  I  believe  it  is  a  just  observation,  that  one  of  the 
best  practical  tests  of  proficiency  in  a  foreign  language  is  the  degree  in  which  the 
student  is  capable  of  enjoying  a  blunder  in  the  Use  of  it.  When  we  have  so  far 
appropriated  a  new  speech  that  the  mistakes  of  a  stranger,  in  its  grammar  or 
pronunciation,  produce  upon  us  the  same  odd  and  ludicrous  effect  as  errors  in  our 
vernacular,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  have  pretty  fully  mastered  it ;  but  we  must 
regard  ourselves  as  tiros  until  we  have  become  thus  far  imbued  with  its  spirit. 

Learned  Lepsius  engraved  upon  the  Great  Pyramid,  for  the  delectation  of 
the  disembodied  sprites  that  haunt  that  *  pile  stupendous,'  and  of  such  future 
travellers  in  the  East  as  might  happen  to  know  no  language  more  modern  than 
that  of  Cheops,  a  hieroglyphic  record  of  his  antiquarian  pilgrimage  to  Egypt; 
but  I  doubt  whether  Mr.  Birch  could  contrive  to  extract  an  honest  laugh  out  of 
the  possible  solecisms  in  sequence  and  juxtaposition  of  the  birds,  reptiles,  and 
horned  cattle  that  figure  in  that  inscription;  and  I  fear  that  the  perhaps  too 
poetical  licenses  of  Mr.  Conybeare's  Anglo-Saxon  rhythms  did  not  strike  Mr. 
Kemble  as  comical  enough  to  produce  that  salutary  deopilation  of  the  sj^lcen  which 
the  French  hold  to  be  so  serviceable  to  the  health  of  sedentary  gentlemen. 


90  MGESO-GOTHIC  Lect.  IIL 

who  lived  in  the  seventh  century,  and  the  Grerman  of  Goethe ; 
the  comparison  ought  to  be  instituted  between  corresponding 
stages  of  philological  development.  Such  a  correspondence 
cannot  be  arrived  at  by  a  mere  computation  of  time,  because 
we  have  no  sufficient  means  of  knowing  the  precise  syntactical 
or  lexical  character  of  either  speech  until  some  time  after  Chris- 
tianity had  bestowed  upon  them  the  Eoman  alphabet,  and  sup- 
plied both  the  means  and  the  incentives  for  an  extended  literary 
culture.  To  this  remark  the  Moeso-Gothic  is  an  appai-ent 
exception.  It  is  said  that  Ulfilas,  who  translated  the  Scriptures 
into  his  native  tong-ue,  in  the  fourth  century,  himself  invented 
his  alphabet,  or  rather  accommodated  the  Greek  and  Latin 
characters  to  his  purposes,  and  first  reduced  the  Moeso-Gothic 
language  to  writing.*  We  should  therefore  suppose  that  he 
would  have  employed,  in  his  translation,  the  current  forms  and 
the  standard  vocabulary  of  the  heathen  period ;  for  the  conver- 
sion of  the  Moeso-Goths  was  then  too  recent  to  allow  any  very 
essential  modification  of  their  speech  by  Christian  influences  to 
have  taken  place.  In  the  want  of  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
we  should  think  ourselves  authorised  to  suppose  that  we  have, 
in  the  remains  of  the  work  of  Ulfilas,  a  specimen  of  a  Gothic 
dialect  in  what  may  be  called  a  normal  form,  that  is,  a  form 
spontaneously  developed  by  the  operation  of  its  own  organic 
laws  and  native  tendencies,  uncontrolled  by  alien  influences, 

*  Theophilus,  a  Gothic  tishop,  or  rather  a  hishop  of  the  Goths  (possibly  an 
episcopus  in  jpartibus),  -was  present  at  the  Council  of  Nice,  a.d.  325,  and  it  is  hence 
inferred  that  some  considerable  proportion  of  the  Mceso- Goths  were  Christianized 
a  couple  of  generations  before  the  execution  of  Ulfilas' s  translation.  There  is  also 
other  evidence  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  among  this  people,  by  Cappa- 
docian  captives,  in  the  third  century.  It  is  not  probable  that  a  Christian  nation 
would  remain  a  hundred  years  without  letters,  and  it  is  hardly  credible  that  they 
contented  themselves,  so  long,  with  so  rude  an  alphabet  as  the  runic.  Ulfilas 
must,  then,  be  taken  rather  as  the  improver  than  as  the  inventor  of  the  alphabet 
he  used.  I  see  no  ground  for  the  opinion  that  the  monkish  or  black-letter 
characters  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  borrowed  from  those  of  Ulfilas.  Those  who 
did  not  inherit  his  speech  would  not  have  succeeded  to  his  alphabet.  There  is  no 
very  close  resemblance  between  his  system  and  the  mediaeval  black  letter,  and  the 
latter  does  not  follow  the  arrangement  of  the  former,  or  retain  all  its  characters. 


Lect.  III.  SCANDINAVIAN  LANGUAGES  91 

except,  indeed,  so  far  as  the  diction  of  a  translation  is  always 
modified  by  the  idiom  of  its  original  and  the  nature  of  its 
subject.  But  I  have  shown,  I  think,  that  the  force  of  the  par- 
ticiple and  the  syntactical  construction  of  the  period  were, 
contrary  to  the  genius  of  the  Gothic  family  of  tongues,  pro- 
bably conformed  by  Ulfilas  to  the  usage  of  the  Greek ;  and  it 
is  possible  that  other  grammatical  innovations  were  introduced 
by  him.  With  respect  to  the  inflectional  forms  and  the  general 
vocabulary  of  the  Moeso-Gothic,  however,  we  have  no  evidence 
of  any  corruption  or  change.* 

Of  other  Teutonic  dialects,  we  have  only  a  few  fragments, 
too  inconsiderable  in  amount  and  of  too  doubtful  reading,  to 
serve  as  a  basis  for  any  general  conclusions,  until  a  sufficient 
time  after  the  christianisation  of  Germany  for  important  changes 
to  have  taken  place. 

The  oldest  existing  Scandinavian  manuscripts  date  only  from 
the  thirteenth  century,  though  some  of  the  works  of  which  they 
are  copies  were  no  doubt  composed  during  the  heathen  era, 
and  many  within  a  few  years  after.  But  it  was  the  almost 
universal  habit  of  scribes  to  conform  orthography  and  inflection 
to  the  standard  of  their  own  time,  and  therefore  a  manuscript 
copy  of  a  work  of  an  earlier  period  is,  in  general,  not  admissible 
evidence  as  to  the  formal  characteristics  of  the  dialect  of  the 
original,  t 

The  Moeso-Gothic,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot  be  identified  as 
the  direct  parent  of  any  later  Teutonic  dialect ;  and  as  its  lite- 

*  The  XJpsala  MS.  of  Ulfilas,  called  the  Codex  Argenteus,  either  because  bound 
iu  silver,  or  because  it  is  executed  almost  wholly  in  silver  characters,  is  thought 
to  have  been  written  not  later  than  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
the  death  of  the  translator,  and  the  few  other  extant  remains  of  that  language 
are  referred  to  about  the  same  period.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  Mceso-Grothic 
had  undergone  some  change  in  the  interim,  but  its  literature  was  apparently  so 
restricted  that  there  was  little  room  for  the  written  secular  dialect  to  influence 
the  sacred,  and  it  is  probable  that  in  accidence  and  vocabulary  the  Mceso-G-othic 
of  Ulfilas  is  purer  and  more  unsophisticated  than  any  other  philological  monument 
of  European  literature. 

t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XIX.,  p.  421. 


92  M(ESO-GOTHIC   AND  ANGLO-SAXON  Lect.  III. 

rature  perished  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  born,  we  are  acquainted 
with  it  only  in  a  single  phase,  that,  namely,  when  it  sprang 
into  sudden  existence  as  a  finished  medium  of  literary  effort. 
All  the  other  Gothic  tongues,  on  the  contrary,  become  first 
known  to  us,  at  periods  when  they  had  been  subjected  for  a  con- 
siderable time  to  influences  which  cannot  have  failed  to  pro- 
duce very  essential  modifications  in  them,  and  when  they  were 
still  in  an  unstable  and  revolutionary  condition. 

Between  the  Moeso-Gothic  and  the  Anglo-Saxon,  then,  no 
fair  comparison  can  be  instituted,  and  as  to  the  other  cognate 
languages,  the  only  just  method  of  testing  their  respective  capa- 
bilities would  be  to  take  each  at  the  highest  pitch  of  culture 
and  of  power  attained  by  it,  under  those  fresh  impulses  of 
youthful  civilisation  which,  in  most  respects,  were  the  same  for 
them  all. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  reached  this  its  most  classic  stage  as  early 
as  the  ninth  century,  and  the  w^orks  of  King  Alfred,  and  of 
Alfric  the  grammarian  (who,  however,  died  a  hundred  years 
later,)  may  be  taken  as  specimens  of  the  language  in  its  best 
estate ;  the  Icelandic  was  at  its  acme  probably  in  the  twelfth 
century,  the  saga  of  Njall  being  the  best  exemplification ;  and 
the  High-German,  as  it  appears  in  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  about 
the  year  1 200.  Half  a  century  later,  the  voluminous  works  of  Van 
Maerlant,  and  other  contemporaneous  writers,  first  gave  form 
and  consistence  to  the  Netherlandish  or  Dutch,  and  established 
its  syntax  substantially  as  it  has  since  remained. 

In  comparing  these  languages  at  these  respective  periods, 
we  shall  observe  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  laboured  under  what 
was  in  some  respects  a  disadvantage,  that  of  being  a  more 
mixed  and  composite  speech  in  point  of  vocabulary  and,  in 
some  degree,  of  syntax,  and  therefore  was  less  harmonious  and 
symmetrical  in  its  growth  and  development  than  the  different 
Continental  branches  of  the  Gothic.  Its  derivatives  are  gene- 
rally less  easily  and  less  certainly  traced  to  more  primitive 
forms  and   simpler  significations.     Hence   the   meaning   of  a 


Lect.  III.  ANGLO-SAXON   COPIOUS  93 

larger  proportion  of  its  words  is  apparently  arbitrary,  and  not 
deducible  from  the  primary  sense  of  known  radicals ;  and  with 
respect  to  that  portion  of  its  roots  which  are  not  identifiable  as 
Grothic,  its  power  of  derivation  and  composition  is  less  than  that 
possessed  by  other  Grothic  dialects  over  their  own  indigenous 
stock. 

It  is  partly,  no  doubt,  to  its  mixed  character  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  indebted  for  its  copiousness,  which  is  perhaps  the 
feature  of  its  vocabulary  that  first  strikes  a  student  familiar 
with  the  Scandinavian  and  German  languages.  In  mere  num- 
ber of  vocables,  its  poetical  nomenclature,  indeed,  falls  far  short 
of  that  of  the  Icelandic ;  but  the  copiousness  and  wealth  of  a 
speech  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  a  numerical  computation  of 
words.  The  true  test  is  :  for  what  variety  of  distinct  sensuous 
impressions,  images,  and  objects,  and  of  moral  sentiment  and 
intellectual  conception,  for  what  amount  of  attributives  of 
quality,  for  what  categories  of  being  and  what  manifestations  of 
action  it  has  specific  names.  The  mere  multiplication  of  desig- 
nations for  a  single  thing,  though  it  may  increase  the  power  of 
picturesque  expression,  and  is  therefore  a  convenient  poetical 
and  rhetorical  resource,  does  not  add  to  the  real  copiousness  of 
a  speech.  Thus,  the  Icelandic  prose  Edda,  or  Art  of  Poetry, 
enumerates  more  than  a  hundred  names  for  the  sword,  and  a 
large  number  for  the  ship,  and  for  other  objects  conspicuous  in 
Northern  life.  Most  of  these  were  no  doubt  originally  de- 
scriptive epithets,  and  their  use  suggested,  in  place  of  the 
generalisation  of  the  leading  properties  or  uses  of  the  object 
which  is  expressed  by  its  ordinary  name,  a  sensuous  image 
derived  from  some  one  of  its  characteristics,  or  a  traditional 
recollection  connected  with  the  epithet,  and  thus  incidentally 
increased  the  stock  of  imagery  at  the  command  of  the  poet. 
But  when  epithets  become  obsolete  in  daily  speech,  their  ety- 
mological significance  is  soon  forgotten,  though  they  may  con- 
tinue to  be  used  in  the  dialect  of  verse  merely  as  synonyms  for 
each  other — a  means  of  avoiding  too  frequent  repetition — or  in 


94    ^^-^^   lAi'v*^      TEST  OF  COPIOUSNESS  Lecf.  I  If. 

order  to  employ  a  diction  which  is  thought  poetical,  simply 
because  it  is  not  familiar. 

The  power  of  substituting  a  hundred  epithets  for  the  proper 
name  of  the  object  to  which  they  are  applied  is  not  a  proof  of 
the  copiousness  of  a  language,  even  while  the  etymology  of  the 
epithets  is  remembered,  and  while  they  are  consequently  de- 
scriptive or  suggestive;  but  when  their  origin  is  forgotten 
and  they  become  synonyms,  they  are  hindrances  rather  than 
helps,  and  even  in  poetical  diction  are  little  better  than  tinsel. 
To  exemplify :  to  those  who  know  that  falchion  is  derived  from 
the  Latin  falx,  a  sickle  or  scythe,  the  word  suggests  an  image 
which  sivorcl  does  not  excite,  and  therefore  increases  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  the  poetical  phrase  in  which  it  occurs.  But  to 
those  who  are  ignorant  of  its  etymology,  it  is  simply  what  may 
be  called  a  sensation-synonym  for  sword.  It  is  recommended 
only  by  metrical  adaptation,  or  simply  by  its  unfamiliarity ;  it 
adds  absolutely  nothing  to  the  expressiveness  of  the  diction 
which  employs  it,  and  in  most  cases  is,  both  to  writer  and 
reader,  simply  fustian.  In  words  of  this  class,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  not  particularly  rich,  and  it 
may  therefore  be  said  to  be  inferior  to  the  Icelandic  in  the 
metrical  and  rhetorical  instrumentalities,  the  mechanical  ap- 
pliances, of  the  poetic  art. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  words  which  indicate  different 
states,  emotions,  passions,  mental  processes,  all,  in  short,  that 
expresses  the  moral  or  intellectual  man,  the  Anglo-Saxon  vo- 
cabulary is  eminently  affluent.  Hence  Icelandic  paints,  while 
Anglo-Saxon  describes  and  philosophises.  The  Icelandic  saga 
is  a  pantomime,  in  which  you  see  the  actors  in  all  the  suc- 
cessive scenes  of  the  drama,  and  infer  their  emotions,  their 
aims,  their  motives,  from  their  acts.  The  Anglo-Saxon  gives 
utterance  to  the  inward  status,  and  discloses  men's  thoughts 
rather  than  depicts  their  material  shape  and  their  external 
actions.  A  better  proof  of  the  rich  moral  expressiveness  of 
Anglo-Saxon  than  any  citation  of  examples  is   found  in  the 


►>  O      ■  v. 

tjn; 


Lect.  III.  POWER   OF   COMPOSITION 

fact,  that  those  English  dramatists  and  poets,  who  have  most 
clearly  revealed  the  workings  of  the  heart  and  thrown  most 
light  into  the  deep  abysses  of  the  soul,  have  employed  a  diction 
composed  in  the  largest  measure  of  words  legitimately  de- 
scended from  the  ancient  mother  of  the  English  speech.*  It 
is  in  this  inherited  quality  of  moral  revelation,  which  has  been 
perpetuated  and  handed  down  from  the  tongue  of  the  Grothic 
conquerors  to  its  English  first-born,  that  lies  in  good  part  the 
secret  of  Shakspeare's  power  of  bodying  forth  so  much  of  man's 
internal  being,  and  clothing  so  many  of  his  mysterious  sym- 
pathies in  living  words. 

Although,  as  I  have  remarked,  Anglo-Saxon  words  not  ap- 
parently of  Gothic  origin  are  not  freely  used  as  material  for 
derivation  and  composition,  the  indigenous  roots,  on  the  other 
hand,  exhibit  a  remarkable  plasticity  in  the  way  of  derivative 
formation,  and  a  great  aptitude  for  organic  combination.  Turner 
well  illustrates  this  property  of  Anglo-Saxon  by  tables  of  pri- 
mitives with  their  secondary  forms,  and  he  enumerates  more 
than  twenty  derivatives  from  the  noun  h  y  g  e  (or  h  i  g  e)  which 
signifies  both  mind  and  thought,  that  is,  intellect  quiescent,  and 
intellect  in  action.  Among  these  are  verbs,  secondary  nouns, 
adjectives  and  adverbs,  which,  by  various  modifications,  express 
not  only  mental  states  and  mental  acts,  but  a  variety  of  moral 
emotions  and  affections.  From  mod,  mind,  temper,  and 
gethanc,  a  word  of  allied  original  meaning,  are  given  an 
equal  number  of  derivatives ;  so  that  from  these  three  roots  we 
have,  by  the  aid  of  significant  terminations  and  a  few  subordinate 
compound  elements,  not  less  than  sixty  words  expressive  of 
intellectual  and  moral  conceptions.f  There  are,  besides  these, 
a  great  number  of  other  almost  equally  fertile  radicals  be- 
longing to  the  same  department  of  the  vocabulary,  and  hence 
it  will  be  obvious  that  its  power  of  expression  on  moral  and 
intellectual  subjects  must  have  been  very  considerable.     Indeed 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  VI. 

t  See  Illustration  I.,  at  end  of  this  Lecture. 


96  ANGLO-SAXON   GOSPELS  Lect.  HI. 

it  would  be  difficult  to  find,  in  any  language,  a  term  indi- 
cative of  moral  state  or  emotion,  or  of  intellectual  action  or 
perception,  excepting,  of  course,  the  artificial  terms  belonging 
to  the  technical  dialect  of  metaphysics,  which  is  not  at  least 
approximately  represented  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  translation  of  the  Grospels  well  illustrates 
the  capacities  of  the  tongue  for  a  varied  and  comprehensive 
range  of  expression.  We  know  not  the  history,  the  author,  or 
the  precise  date  of  this  translation,  but  it  belongs  to  the  best 
period  of  the  literature,  and  was  made  from  the  Vulgate,  or 
more  probably,  perhaps,  from  some  nearly  similar  Latin  ver- 
sion.* Our  authorised  translation  of  the  same  books  is  remark- 
able for  its  freedom  from  Grreek,  Latin,  and  Eomance  idioms ; 
but  it  falls  in  this  respect  far  behind  the  Anglo-Saxon,  which 
admits  scarcely  any  but  indigenous  words,  and  substitutes  native 
compounds,  or  specially  framed  derivatives,  for  those  foreign 
words  which  the  English  translators  have  adopted  from  Hebrew, 
G-reek,  Latin,  and  French,  and  incorporated  into  the  modern 
religious  dialect. 

Although  the  Anglo-Saxon  admitted  of  composition  and  de- 
rivation to  a  great  extent,  the  number  of  its  primitives,  or  at 
least  of  words  treated  as  primitives  because  they  were  inca- 

*  To  determine  what  text  the  Anglo-Saxon  translation  of  the  Evangelists  followed, 
would  require  a  far  more  critical  examination  of  the  various  recensions  of  the  Latin 
Gospels  than  I  have  had  an  opportunity  to  make.  I  will,  however,  notice  a  departxire 
from  the  common  Vulgate  reading  in  a  passage  which  happens  to  be  at  this  moment 
under  my  eye.  The  present  authorised  Vulgate  version  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  in  Mat- 
thew vi.,  gives  the  fourth  (the  first  2^crsonal)  petition  thus  : — panem  nostrum  super- 
substantialem  da  nobis  hodie,  supersubstantialem  being  used  as  the  equivalent 
of  the  Greek  imoxxnov,  while  the  same  word  in  Luke  xi.  is  rendered  by  quotidianum. 
In  the  first  rendering,  iirtovaios  is  treated  as  a  participial  adjective  from  ^neifxi  = 
4vi  iifil,  in  the  latter,  as  from  iireifii  =  iiri  eifj-i.  In  the  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels, 
gedaeghwamlican,  ordseghwamlican,  daily,  is  employed  in  both  Evangelists. 
The  Lindisfame  text  of  Matthew  has  oferwistlic,  which  etymologically  should 
mean  dainty,  the  Rushworth,  dseghwsemlicu,  and,  as  an  alternative,  in ston- 
denlice,  which  latter  word  corresponds  very  closely  to  i-moixnos  {iiri  Ii/Jit).  The 
word  used  in  the  Lindisfarne  text  is  the  only  one  which  can  be  regarded  as  a 
translation  of  supersubstantialis.  Ulfilas,  who  made  his  version  from  the 
Greek,  employs  sinteins,  daily. 


> 


Lect.  III.  ANGLO-SAXON   MONOSYLLABIC  97 

pable  of  resolution  into  simpler  forms  and  meanings,  was  so 
large  that  there  was  less  occasion  for  compounds  than  in  most 
other  languages  of  the  same  stock.  This  fact,  together  with 
the  mode  of  inflection  employed  in  the  grammar,  accounts  for 
the  monosyllabic  character  of  the  words.  Compounds  are  built 
up  of  at  least  two  syllabic  elements,  and  must,  except  in  some 
few  cases  of  coalescence  of  syllables,  be  generally  longer  than 
primitives.  Hence,  other  things  being  equal,  the  language 
which  employs  fewest  compounds  will  have  the  shortest  words. 
If  the  same  speech  varies  or  inflects  its  words  for  tense,  person, 
number,  and  case,  by  what  is  called  the  strong  method  —  that 
is,  by  change  of  letters  of  the  radical,  instead  of  addition  of 
syllables,  as  when  we  make  the  past  tense  of  the  verb  lead,  not 
leaded,  hut  led  —  this  is  still  another  cause  of  greater  brevity 
of  words  than  is  found  in  languages  which  inflect  by  augmen- 
tation. 

It  is  surprising  how  far  we  may  carry  literary  composition  in 
English,  without  introducing  any  word  which  requires  more 
than  a  single  emission  of  breath  for  its  articulation.  The  late 
Professor  Addison  Alexander,  of  Princeton,  has  well  illustrated 
this  property  of  Anglo-Saxon,  or  rather  Saxon-English,  by  two 
spirited  sonnets  in  which  only  words  monosyllabic  in  pronun- 
ciation are  employed.  Some  few  of  these,  indeed,  are  Latin  or 
Eomance,  and  some  of  the  verbs  are  declined  by  the  weak  or 
augmentative  inflection,  but  much  the  largest  proportion  of 
the  words  are  native,  and  in  our  articulation  those  written 
with  two  syllables  are  habitually  pronounced  in  one.*  One  of 
these  monosyllabic  sonnets  is  as  follows  :  — 

*  Something  of  the  same  sort  may  be  done  in  French,  and  with  greater  facility 
in  Catalan,  because  those  languages,  in  naturalizing  Latin  words,  often  retain  the 
stem  or  radical  syllable  only,  and  the  Catalan  very  frequently  drops  even  the 
final  consonant  of  that.  Ferreras  wrote  a  Catalan  poem  of  ninety-six  seven-syllabled 
lines,  consisting  wholly  of  monosyllables,  but  in  Eomance  compositions  of  this  sort 
there  is  much  less  variety  of  thought  and  imagery,  and  less  flexibility  and  grace 
of  expression,  than  in  the  English  examples  I  have  cited.  See  lUustratiou  II., 
at  end  of  this  lecture. 

H 


98  MONOSYLLABIC   COMPOSITION  LiCT.  III. 

Think  not  that  strength  lies  in  the  big  round  word, 

Or  that  the  brief  and  plain  must  needs  be  -weak. 

To  whom  can  this  be  true,  who  once  has  heard 

The  cry  for  help,  the  tongue  that  all  men  speak 

"When  Avant,  or  woe,  or  fear,  is  in  the  throat, 

So  that  each  word  gasped  out  is  like  a  shriek 

Pressed  from  the  sore  heart,  or  a  sirange  wild  note 

Sung  by  some  fay  or  fiend !     There  is  a  strength 

Which  dies  if  stretched  too  far  or  spun  too  fine. 

Which  has  more  height  than  breadth,  more  depth  than  lengtli. 

Let  but  this  force  of  thought  and  speech  be  mine. 

And  he  that  will  may  take  the  sleek,  fat,  phrase. 

Which  glows  but  burns  not,  though  it  beam  and  shine  • — 

Light,  but  no  heat — a  flash,  but  not  a  blaze  ! 

These  ingenious  productions  are  interesting,  not  as  possessing 
high  poetical  merit  in  themselves,  or  as  models  to  be  followed 
in  the  selection  of  words,  but  because  they  open  curious  views 
of  the  composition  and  structure  of  our  native  tongue  and  its 
related  dialects,  and  because  they  well  illustrate  what  is  con- 
sidered as  the  general  modern  "tendency  of  all  human  speech  to 
simplification  of  form,  and  to  a  less  mechanical  and  artificial 
syntactical  system.  Truly  able  writers  select  their  words,  not 
with  reference  to  their  historical  origin,  but  solely  for  the  sake 
of  their  adaptation  to  the  effect  aimed  at  on  the  mind  of  the 
reader  or  hearer,  and  he  who  deliberately  uses  an  Anglo-Saxon 
instead  of  a  more  expressive  Eomance  word,  is  as  much  a 
pedant,  as  if  his  diction  were  composed,  in  the  largest  possible 
proportion,  of  words  borrowed  from  the  vocabulary  of  Eome. 

The  masters  of  the  English  tongue  know  that  each  of  its 
great  branches  has  its  special  adaptations.  The  subject,  in  very 
man}^  instances,  as  especially  in  metaphysical,  philological, 
critical  or  sesthetical  discussion,  prescribes  and  compels  a  diction 
composed,  in  a  liberal  percentage,  of  Grreek  and  Latin  imme- 
diate or  secondary  derivatives  ;  and  this  not  always  because  the 
Anglo-Saxon  wanted  corresponding  words,  but  often  because 
they  have  become  obsolete.     Hence  an  author,  who,  in  a  dis- 


Lfct.  III.  REVIVAL   OF   OBSOLETE   WOEDS  99 

course  or  a  poem  designed  for  popular  effect,  would  speak 
almost  pure  Anglo-Saxon,  might,  very  likely,  in  treating  the 
themes  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  find  it  convenient  to 
exceed  even  the  Latinism  of  Johnson. 

There  is  at  present  a  very  strong  tendency  to  the  revival  of 
obsolete  English  and  Anglo-Saxon  words,  and  the  effect  of  an 
increasing  study  of  our  ancient  literature  is  very  visible  in  the 
style  of  the  best  prose,  and  more  especially,  poetic  compositions 
of  the  present  day.  Our  vocabulary  is  capable  of  great  enrich- 
ment from  the  store-house  of  the  ancient  Anglican  speech,  and 
the  revival  of  a  taste  for  Anglo-Saxon  and  early  English 
literature  will  exert  a  very  important  influence  on  the  intellec- 
tual activity  of  the  next  generation.  The  pedantry  of  individuals 
may,  no  doubt,  as  the  same  affectation  has  done  in  Germany  and 
Holland*,  carry  puristic  partialities  to  a  length  as  absurd  as 
lipogrammatism  in  literature,  but  the  general  familiarity  of 
literary  men  with  classic  and  Continental  philology  will  always 
supply  a  corrective,  and  no  great  danger  is  to  be  apprehended  in 
this  direction.  In  any  event,  the  evil  will  be  less  than  was 
experienced  from  the  stilted  classicism  of  Johnson,  or  the  Grallic 
imitations  of  Gibbon.  The  recovery  of  forgotten  native  words 
will  affect  English  something  in  the  same  way,  though  not  in 
the  same  direction,  as  did  the  influx  of  French  words  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  of  Latin  in  the  sixteenth ;  and  the  gain 
will  be  as  real  as  it  was  in  those  instances.  But  it  is  not  by  an 
accession  of  words  alone,  that  the  study  of  Anglo-Saxon  and 
ancient  English  literature  is  destined  to  affect  that  of  the 
present  and  coming  generations.  The  recovery  of  the  best 
portion  of  the  obsolete  vocabulary  will  bring  with  it,  not  only 
new  expressiveness  of  diction,  but  something  of  the  vigour  and 
freshness  of  thought  and  wealth  of  poetic  imagery  which  usually 
accompanies  the  revival  of  a  national  spirit  in  literature. 

Although  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  the  bubbling  well-spring  whose 

*  See  First  Scries,  Lecture  IX. 

H  2 


100  ANGLO-SAXON  LITERATURE  Lect.  III. 

8\veet  waters  have  given  a  specific  flavour  to  the  broader  and 
more  impetuous  current  of  our  maternal  speech — and  therefore 
some  knowledge  of  the  more  primitive  is  essential  to  a  com- 
prehension of  the  history  of  the  derivative  language — yet  the 
literature  of  ancient  Anglia  stands  in  no  such  relation  to  that 
of  modern  England.  Beowulf,  and  the  songs  of  Csedmon  and 
Cynewulf,  and  even  the  relics  of  the  great  Alfred,  were  buried 
out  of  sight  and  forgotten  long  before  any  work,  now  recognised 
as  distinctively  English  in  spirit,  had  been  conceived  in  the 
imagination  of  its  author.  The  earliest  truly  English  writers 
borrowed  neither  imagery  nor  thought  nor  plan,  seldom  even 
form,  from  older  native  models,  and  hence  Anglo-Saxon  lite- 
rature, so  far  from  being  the  mother,  was  not  even  the  nurse  of 
the  infant  genius  which  opened  its  eyes  to  the  sun  of  England 
five  centuries  ago.  The  history  and  criticism  of  Anglo-SaxoD 
literature  are  therefore  almost  foreign  to  our  subject ;  but  were 
they  more  nearly  related  to  it,  I  should  be  obliged  to  exclude 
them  from  present  consideration,  because  the  illustrations  I 
must  adduce  would  be  borrowed  from  a  tongue  generally  un- 
known to  my  audience,  and  no  translatioji  could  fairly  represent 
them. 

Although  the  literary  character  of  Anglo-Saxon  writers  had 
no  appreciable  influence  on  the  spirit,  little  on  the  form,  of 
early  English  authorship,  yet  certain  traits  of  the  specific  intel- 
lectual and  social  life  of  the  Anglian  people  survived  for  a  time, 
and  manifested  themselves  in  the  nascent  literature  of  the 
mixed  race  which  had  succeeded  to  the  name  and  place  of  the 
Gothic  immigrant.  Hence,  some  general  remarks  on  the  lead- 
ing characteristics  of  the  poetry  and  prose  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
considered  as  an  expression  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  that 
nation,  will  not  be  altogether  out  of  place.  The  poetry  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  so  far  as  we  know  it  by  its  extant  remains,  is 
chiefly  sacred,  or  at  least  religious  in  subject,  and,  though  not 
remarkable  for  plan  or  invention,  is  very  elevated  in  tone,  and 
exhibits   much  nobleness  of  sentiment  and  beauty  of  detail 


Lrcr.  III.  BEOWULF  101 

The  poems  of  the  early  Christian  era  among  the  Scandinavians 
have,  with  some  remarkable  exceptions,  not  much  merit  except 
that  of  skill  in  overcoming  the  difficulties  imposed  by  highly 
artificial  forms  and  canons  of  metrical  composition.  In  the 
higher  excellences  of  poetry,  the  celebrated  epic,  Beowulf,  ranks 
perhaps  first  among  the  monuments  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature, 
but  in  subject,  plan,  and  treatment,  it  differs  so  widely  from 
the  general  character  of  the  versified  compositions  in  the  lan- 
guage, that  it  cannot  be  considered  as  a  product  of  the  same 
genius  or  the  same  influences  which  have  given  form  and  spirit 
to  the  other  literary  efforts  of  that  people.  It  is,  I  think,  un- 
questionably of  Continental  and  heathen  origin,  though  in 
passing  through  the  hands  of  Christian  revisers  and  copyists,  it 
has  undergone  the  modifications  necessary  to  render  it  less 
objectionable  to  the  tastes  and  opinions  of  a  converted  nation. 
We  cannot  affirm  it  to  be  a  translation,  because  we  have  no 
knowledge  of  any  Continental  source  from  which  it  could  have 
been  taken.  In  its  machinery,  it  has  many  points  of  re- 
semblance to  Scandinavian  mythic  poetry,  and  though  there 
exists  no  Old-Northern  poem  of  very  similar  character,  there  are 
prose  sagas  —  generally  indeed  of  much  later  date  —  which  in 
tone  and  treatment  are  not  unlike  the  story  of  Beowalf.  Its 
scenery  and  personages  are  Danish,  and  the  Avhole  poem  be- 
longs both  in  form  and  essence  to  the  Scandinavian,  not  to  the 
G-ermanic  school  of  art.  The  substance  of  Beowulf,  either  as 
saga  or  as  poem,  came  over,  I  believe,  with  some  of  the  con- 
querors ;  and  its  existence  in  Anglo-Saxon  literature  I  consider 
as  one  among  the  many  proofs  of  an  infusion  of  the  Scandi- 
navian element  in  the  immigration.* 

The  poetry  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  is  to  be  comprehended  only 

*  The  fact,  that  not  the  most  remote  allusion  to  the  poem  of  Beowulf  or  to  the 
story  it  embalms  has  yet  been  discovered  in  any  Anglo-Saxon  author,  proves  that 
it  cannot  have  been  generally  known  to  the  scholars  of  that  nation,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  its  un-Grcrmanic  character  rendered  it  so  little  acceptable  to  a 
people  chiefly  of  Teutonic  origin,  that  it  never  obtained  much  circulation  among 
them. 


102  THE   NORTHMEN  Lect.  III. 

through  a  knowledge  of  their  language,  and  I  must  refer  those 
who  are  contented  with  merely  general  views  of  its  character  to 
the  many  translations  and  critical  works  on  the  subject  which 
English  and  German  scholars  have  recently  produced.  I  shall, 
however,  in  bringing  out  the  prominent  traits  of  early  English 
literature,  as  they  from  time  to  time  develop  themselves,  have 
occasion  to  notice  points  of  contrast  and  of  coincidence  between 
the  products  oi  Saxon  and  of  English  genius,  and  to  present 
them  more  effectively  than  I  could  now  do  by  a  more  extended 
special  criticism.  But  I  will  here  again  refer,  somewhat  in 
detail,  to  an  important  deficiency  in  Anglo-Saxon  literature, 
which  I  have  already  noticed  as  characteristic  also  of  early 
English  letters  —  the  want  of  a  vernacular  historical  school, 
which  that  people  seems  never  to  have  possessed. 

The  contrast  in  this  respect  between  the  Anglo-Saxons  and 
t^e  Scandinavian  Northmen,  who  were  nearly  allied  to  them  in 
speech,  and  probably  in  blood,  is  very  remarkable.  The  North- 
men were  men  of  action,  enterprising  merchants,  navigators, 
hunters,  soldiers  of  fortune,  leading  the  van  of  every  battle 
from  Norway  to  Byzantium,  subduers  of  savage  and  of  effemi- 
nate, exhausted  races,  colonists,  legislators,  conquerors  over  the 
rigours  of  climate  and  the  forces  of  inanimate  nature.  These 
heroic  qualities  were  perpetuated  in  the  energetic  adventurers 
who  made  themselves  masters  of  Normandy,  were  infused  by 
them  into  their  Grallic,  Eomance,  and  Francic  subjects,  and 
finally  became  the  leaven,  by  which  the  now  torpid  elements  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  character  were  thrown  into  a  new  fermenta- 
tion, and  stirred  to  that  marvellous  physical  and  moral  ac- 
tion which  has  made  the  Ensjlish  nation  so  long:  foremost  amongr 

o  o  o 

men. 

The  admiration  felt  by  such  a  people  for  the  high  qualities, 
which  alone  had  rendered  possible  the  great  exploits  of  their 
kings  and  chieftains,  naturally  disposed  the  Northmen  to  the 
preservation  of  the  memory  of  heroic  achievements,  and  to  an 
interest  in  the  personal  history  of  men  distinguished  for  prowess 


Lect.  III.  THE  SAXON  CHEONICLE  103 

and  success.  The  saga-man,  or  reciter,  was  everywhere  a 
favoured  guest,  and  the  skill  with  which  these  artists  con- 
structed the  plan,  of  their  historical,  or  rather  biographical, 
narrations,  and  filled  in  the  details,  has  never  been  surpassed  in 
the  annals  of  any  people. 

The  Anglo-Saxons,  on  the  other  hand,  when  by  a  series  of 
spasmodic  efforts  they  had  expelled  the  Britons  from  their 
native  homes,  and  established  themselves  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  comparative  abundance  and  comfort  which  the  milder 
climate  and  more  genial  soil  of  England  afforded,  seem  to  have 
relapsed  into  a  life  of  inglorious  ease.  If  they  were  ever  roused 
to  deeds  of  vigorous  action  and  martial  daring,  it  was  in  strifes 
among  themselves  about  the  division  of  the  spoil  they  had  won, 
or  in  the  defence  of  their  new  homes  against  invasion  and 
plunder  by  the  successive  swarms  of  hardy  and  hungry  warriors, 
whom  the  North  was  ever  sending  forth  to  tear  from  them  the 
booty  which  they  had  wrung  from  the  imbecile  Celt.  They 
had  ceased  to  be  an  active,  and  had  become  a  contemplative 
people;  and  so  insignificant  were  the  contests  between  the 
Saxon  kingiings,  recorded  in  the  meagre  native  annals,  that, 
as  Milton  says,  they  were  not  '  more  worth  to  chronicle  than 
the  wars  of  kites  or  crows  flocking  and  fighting  in  the  air.' 
The  life  and  reign  of  Alfred  form  a  brilliant  exception  to 
the  uninteresting  character  of  Anglo-Saxon  history ;  but  in 
general,  vapid,  empty,  and  uncritical  as  are  the  Saxon  chro- 
niclers, they  are,  in  the  words  of  the  same  writer,  'worthy 
enough  for  the  things  they  register.'  Such  being  the  true  cha- 
racter of  the  Anglo-Saxon  secular  historians,  it  is  strange  that 
national  pride  should  have  led  English  critics  to  attach  such 
extravagant  value  to  the  series  of  annals  generally  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle. 

The  Saxon  Chronicle  is  a  dry  chronological  record,  noting  in 
the  same  lifeless  tone  important  and  trifling  events,  without  the 
slightest  tinge  of  dramatic  colour,  of  criticism  in  weighing  evi- 


104  THE   SAXON   CHRONICLE  Lec^.  III. 

dence,  or  of  judgment  in  the  selection  of  the  facts  narrated. 
The  following  extracts  are  fair  specimens  :  — 

An.  cccc.XLix.  In  this  year  Martian  and  Valentinian  succeeded  to 
the  empire  and  reigned  seven  winters.  And  in  their  days  Hengest  and 
Horsa,  invited  by  Wyrtgeorn,  king  of  the  Britons,  sought  Britain,  on 
the  shore  Avhich  is  named  Ypwines  fleot;  first  in  support  of  the  Bri- 
tons, but  afterwards  they  fought  against  them. 

An.  cccc.LXXiii.  In  this  year  Hengest  and  -^sc  fought  against  the 
Welsh  and  took  countless  booty ;  and  the  Welsh  fled  from  the  Angles 
as  fire. 

An.  D.ix.  In  this  year  St.  Benedict  the  abbot,  father  of  all  monks, 
went  to  heaven. 

An.  DC.xvr.  In  this  year  ^thclberht,  king  of  the  Kentish  people, 
died ;  he  reigned  LVI  winters ;  and  Eadbald,  his  son,  succeeded  to  the 
kingdom,  who  contemned  his  baptism  and  lived  in  heathen  manner,  so 
that  lie  had  his  father's  relict  to  wife.  Then  Laurentius,  who  was 
archbishop  of  Kent,,  was  minded  that  he  would  go  south  over  sea  and 
forsake  all.  But  by  night  the  Apostle  Peter  came  to  him,  and  severely 
scourged  him,  because  he  would  so  forsake  God's  flock ;  and  bade  him 
to  go  to  the  king  and  preach  to  him  the  true  faith ;  and  he  did  so  and 
the  king  was  converted,  and  was  baptized.  In  this  king's  day,  Lau- 
rentius, who  was  in  Kent  after  Augustine,  died  on  the  ivth  day  of  the 
nones  of  February,  and  was  buried  beside  Augustine.  Afler  him  Mel- 
litus  succeeded  to  the  Archbishopric,  who  had  been  bishop  of  London. 
And  within  five  years  after,  IMellitus  died.  Then  after  him  Justus 
succeeded  to  the  archbishopric,  who  had  been  bishop  of  Eochester,  and 
hallowed  Romanus  bishop  thereto. 

An.  DC.LXXi.     In  this  year  was  the  great  destruction  of  birds. 

An.  DCC.xciii.  In  this  year  dire  forwarnings  came  over  the  land  of 
the  Northumbrians,  and  miserably  terrified  the  people:  there  were 
excessive  whirlwinds  and  lightnings,  and  fiery  dragons  were  seen  flying 
in  the  air„  A  great  famine  soon  followed  these  tokens ;  and  a  little 
after  that,  in  the  same  year,  on  the  vith  of  the  Ides  of  January,  the 
havoc  of  heathen  men  miserably  destroyed  God's  church  at  Lindis- 
furne,  through  rapine  and  slaughter.  And  Sicga  died  on  the  viiith  of 
the  kal.  of  March.* 

Sometimes  the  events  of  a  year,  especially  in  the  later  parts 

♦  I  adopt  Thorpe's  translation  in  the  Eer.  Brit.  Med.  Aev.  Scriptores. 


],ECT.  III.  ANGLO-SAXON   LIFE  105 

of  the  chronicle,  are  extended  over  a  page  or  two,  but,  in  these 
cases,  we  have  generally  a  mere  accumulation  of  facts  as  barren 
and  as  insignificant  as  those  I  have  cited,  or,  perhaps,  an  ac- 
count of  the  foundation  or  endowment  of  a  monastery,  the 
institution  of  a  bishop  or  the  relations  between  the  English 
church  and  the  see  of  Rome.  Ot  course,  in  all  this,  thero  is 
occasionally  a  fact  which  gives  us  a  faint  glimpse  of  the  actual 
life  of  the  English  man  and  woman,  as  for  example  the  nar- 
rative of  the  assassination  of  King  Cynewulf  in  755  (properly 
784),  and  there  are,  here  and  there,  notices  of  unusual  astro- 
nomical and  meteorological  phenomena ;  but  taking  the  chro- 
nicle as  a  whole,  I  know  not  where  else  to  find  a  series  of  annals 
which  is  so  barren  of  all  human  interest,  and  for  all  purposes 
of  real  history  so  worthless.  And  yet  Ingram,  the  editor  of  the 
second  edition  of  this  work,  declares  in  his  preface  that  ^philo- 
sophically considered,  this  ancient  record  is  the  second  great 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  mankind,'  the  first  place  being 
generously  awarded  to  '  the  sacred  annals  of  the  Jews.'  After 
such  commendation  upon  a  work  so  destitute  of  merit  and  of 
value,  we  must  admit  that  the  Danish  critic  spoke  in  terms  of 
great  moderation  when  he  affirmed  that,  as  compared  with  the 
Heimskringla  of  the  Icelander  Snorri  Sturluson,  the  history  of 
Herodotus  was  the  work  of  a  bungler,  and  that  of  John  Muller 
no  better  than  a  first  essay. 

From  the  want  of  historical  talent  among  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
we  know  little  of  their  social  life,  and  of  the  practical  w^orking 
of  their  institutions ;  but  their  literature,  and  especially  their 
legislation,  are  those  of  a  people  by  no  means  advanced  in  social 
culture,  and  their  art  seems  to  have  always  remained  at  a 
very  humble  level.*     The  specific  causes  of  their  decay  we  are 

^'  Anglo-Saxon  writers  ascribe  to  their  countrymen  much  skill  in  some  of  the 
minor  arts,  especially  those  subservient  to  the  material  pomp  of  the  Komisli 
•worship ;  but  the  surviving  specimens  of  their  liandywork  do  not  give  by  any 
means  an  exalted  impression  of  their  abilities  in  this  respect.  It  is  disputed 
whether  any  remains  of  Anglo-Saxon  architecture  still  exist,  and  the  testimony  is 
strong  to  show  that  their  churches  and  other  public  as  well  as  private  buildings 


106  LANGUAGES   INFLECTED   AND   UNINFLECTED  Lect.  III. 

unable  to  assign,  but  it  is  evident  that  at  the  time  of  the  Con- 
quest, the  people  and  their  literature  were  in  a  state  of  languish- 
ing depression,  which  was  enlivened  and  cheered  by  no  symptom 
of  returning  life  and  vigour. 

The  Norman  Conquest  did  not  cause,  it  only  hastened,  the 
downfall  of  the  Saxon  commonwealth,  and  by  infusing  the  ele- 
ments of  a  new  life  into  an  exhausted  race,  it  restored  its  organs 
once  more  to  healthy  action  and  thus  rescued  it  from  sinking 
into  the  state  of  utter  barbarism  to  which  it  was  rapidly  tending. 

In  order  more  clearly  to  exhibit  the  relations  between  the  old 
and  the  new  features  of  the  speech  of  England,  and  to  explain  the 
process  of  transition  from  that  which  was  to  that  which  is,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  devote  a  few  words  to  a  general  account  of 
the  grammatical  structure  of  Anglo-Saxon. 

Of  languages  considered  as  grammatical  individuals,  there 
are,  theoretically,  two  great  classes ;  (a),  those  in  which  the 
sjTitactical  relations  of  words  are  determined  by  coincidence  or 
correspondence  of  form,  the  forms  being  varied  according  to 
number,  person,  case,  mood,  tense,  gender,  degree  of  com- 
parison and  other  conditions,  as  for  -example,  when  by  adding 
an  s  to  the  indeterminate  or  stem  form  of  the  verb  give,  we 
make  it  an  indicative  present  third  person  singular,  gives;  and 
(6),  those  where  these  relations  are  indicated  by  position,  auxili- 
aries and  particles,  the  words  themselves  remaining  unvaried, 
as  when  we  make  the  same  verb,  give,  a  future  by  placing  the 
auxiliary  will  before  it.  Practically,  however,  there  are"  few, 
if  any,  speeches  in  which  either  of  these  syntactical  systems  is 
fully  carried  out,  and  the  two  are  almost  everywhere  more  or 
less  intermixed.  All  assignments  of  languages,  therefore,  to 
either  class,  must  be  considered  only  as  approximate  and  com- 
parative statements  of  the  fact. 

were  at  best  humble  structures.  Of  all  the  works  of  man's  hands,  architecture  is 
the  best  test  of  the  artistic  capacity  of  a  people,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  those 
who  have  never  raised  a  worthy  church  or  temple  have  never  gone  beyond  medio- 
crity in  the  inferior  arts. 


Lect.  III.  A^'GLO-SAXON    GEAMMAIi  107 

The  Anglo-Saxon,  partly,  no  doubt,  in  consequence  of  its 
composite  structure,  partakes  largely  of  the  characteristics  of 
both  classes  ;  but,  as  compared  with  modern  English,  its  syntax 
may  be  considered  as  inflectional,  and  in  a  considerable  degree 
independent  of  position,  the  sense  being  often  equally  une- 
quivocal, whether  the  words  of  a  period  are  arranged  in  one 
order  or  another.  The  inflections  of  the  verb  were  more  precise 
in  the  indication  of  number,  and,  though  in  a  less  degree,  of 
person  than  of  time  or  condition ;  still  they  were  not  sufficiently 
so  to  allow  of  the  omission  of  the  nominative  pronoun.  Aux- 
iliary verbs  were  used  much  as  in  modern  English  for  the 
expression  of  accidents,  yet  they  were  employed  with  greater 
reserve,  and  we  can  consequently,  by  means  of  auxiliaries, 
express  in  English  a  greater  variety  of  conditions  and  qualifica- 
tions of  the  act  or  state  indicated  by  the  verb  than  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  were  able  to  do.  It  is  singular  that  though  there 
existed  a  simple  as  well  as  compound  past  tenses,  there  was  no 
mode  of  expressing  the  future  of  verbs  by  either  inflection  or 
auxiliaries,  and  the  Saxon  could  only  say,  I  give  to-day,  I  give 
to-morrow,  not  I  shall  or  will  give  to-morrow.  This  was  un- 
doubtedly a  defect,  and  we  have  improved  upon  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  syntax  by  developing  future  auxiliaries  out  of  the  inde- 
pendent verbs  shall  and  will,  the  former  of  which  originally 
expressed  duty  or  necessity,  the  latter  intention  or  desire,  with- 
out reference  to  time. 

The  want  of  the  Saxon  verbal  inflections  for  number  and 
person  can  hardly  be  considered  an  imperfection  in  the  English 
language;  for  inflection  though  it  may  reduce  the  number  of 
words,  gives  no  greater  precision,  but  on  the  contrary,  less  force 
of  expression  in  these  respects  than  may  be  obtained  by  the 
use  of  auxiliaries,  pronouns,   and   other   determinatives.*     In 

*  The  employment  of  the  nominative  pronoun  was  felt  by  the  Latins  them- 
seh'cs  to  strengthen  the  force  of  expression,  and  therefore,  though  the  distinction 
of  persons  is  yery  marked  in  the  inflections  of  the  Latin  verb,  they  often  made  it 
more  emphatic  by  introducing  the  pronoun,  as  we  do  by  re-duplicating  it,  though 
in  another  form.  Thus  the  Eoman  would  say,  not  simply  vidi,  (Z)  saw,  but  ego 
vidi,  or  even  egomet  vidi,  in  cases  where  we  should  say,  I  saw  (if)  myself. 


108  ANGLO-SAXON   GRAMMAR  Lecf.  HI, 

syntaxes  where  the  pronoun  is  always  expressed,  as  it  is  in 
Anglo-Saxon  and  English  except  in  the  imperative,  the  distinc- 
tion of  number  and  person  is  wholly  superfluous.  Thus,  where 
a  foreigner  says,  in  his  broken  English,  he  give,  instead  of  he 
gives,  we  understand  him  perfectly.  The  omission  of  the  s, 
the  sign  of  the  singular  number  and  third  person,  occasions  no 
embarrassment,  and  it  would  be  no  detriment  to  English  syntax 
if  we  ourselves  were  to  omit  it  altogether.  But  in  Latin  and 
Italian,  where  the  pronoun  is  very  often  omitted,  a  mistake  in 
the  characteristic  ending  confounds  the  listener. 

So  the  limitation  of  particular  past  or  future  inflections,  or 
even  auxiliary  combinations,  to  specific  portions  of  time,  is  a 
source  of  constant  embarrassment  in  the  use  of  words,  without 
any  corresponding  logical  or  rhetorical  benefit.  Thus  the  French 
rule,  strict  conformity  to  which  requires  us  to  say: — elle 
chanta  hier  au  lever  du  soleil,  she  sang  yesterday  at 
sunrise,  but,  elle  a  ehante  ce  matin  au  lever  du  soleil, 
she  has  sung  this  morning  at  sunrise,  is  a  blemish  in  the 
syntax,  not  an  advantage.  In  these  and  other  like  phrases,  the 
time  is  really  fixed,  not  by  the  form  of  the  verb,  but  by  the 
words  yesterday  and  this  morning,  and  the  distinction  between 
the  tenses  has,  in  their  present  use,  no  solid  foundation ;  whereas 
in  English  the  difference  between  the  preterite  and  the  com- 
pound, he  sang,  and  he  has  sung,  is  a  logical  one.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  in  French  practice,  the  grammatical  distinction 
has  been  found  too  subtle  to  be  observed,  and  the  compound  is 
very  frequently  employed  when  the  preterite  should  be. 

Another  difference  between  Anglo-Saxon  and  English  is,  that 
the  latter  has  nearly  got  rid  of  the  perplexing  and  unprofitable 
distinction  of  grammatical  gender.  In  Anglo-Saxon,  as  in 
Greek,  Latin  and  German,  nouns  have  three  genders,  and  these 
do  not  depend  upon  sex,  even  in  the  case  of  organised  beings 
capable  of  being  thus  distinguished.  This  confusion  is,  how- 
ever, not  carried  so  far  in  Anglo-Saxon  as  in  German,  where 
Frauenzimmer,  luoman,  is  neuter,  and  Mannsperson,  a 


Lect.  111.  GRAMMATICAL   GENDER  109 

male  person,  is  feminine,  or  as  in  Swedish,  where  menniskja, 
man  in  the  abstract,  is  feminine;  but  still  the  Saxon  mseden, 
our  modern  maiden,  is,  like  the  Grerman  corresponding  mad- 
chen,  a  neuter,  and  in  the  case  of  inanimate  objects,  to  which 
genders  are  conventionally  ascribed,  they  are  applied  in  a  very 
different  way  from  our  own.  Thus  in  Anglo-Saxon,  as  also  in 
Icelandic,  the  word  for  moon,  mona,  is  masculine,  that  for 
sun,  sunne,  feminine.* 

It  may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  the  theory  of  gram- 
matical gender  has  not  been  much  attended  to  by  most  phi- 
lologists, and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  not  been  satisfactorily 
discussed  by  any.  The  distinction  of  gender,  however  arbi- 
trarily it  may  be  applied  —  and  there  are  few  languages  where 
it  is  not  much  more  so  than  in  English  —  seems  to  be  more 
tenaciously  and  constantly  adhered  to  than  any  other  gram- 
matical peculiarity.  In  Grerman  and  French,  where  the  genders 
appear  to  be  almost  wholly  conventional,  mistakes  in  gender 
are  rarer  than  any  other  error  in  speech,  and  in  all  languages 
with  grammatical  gender,  the  blunders  of  foreigners  in  this 
respect  are  more  ludicrous  to  a  native  ear  than  any  others  what- 
ever, even  when  they  occur  in  pronouns  or  in  the  names  of 
inanimate  objects.     We  cannot  without  a  smile  hear  a  French- 

^  In  German,  the  diminutives  are  neuter,  without  regard  to  sex.  Vater 
and  Mutter,  Bruder  and  Schwester,  father,  mother,  brother  and  sister,  lose 
their  sexuality  and  become  neuter  in  taking  the  affectionate  or  coaxing  forms, 
Vaterchcn,  Mlltterchen,  Bruderlein,  Schwesterlein.  So  far  is  this 
carried  that  the  distinctive  designations  of  sex  in  the  lower  animals,  Miinnchen 
and  Weibchen,  male  and  female,  are  gi'ammatically  neuter,  and  when  the  heroine 
of  a  popular  tale  has  a  pet  diminutive  name,  as  Mariechen,  the  neuter  pronoun 
es,  it,  is  used  instead  of  the  feminine,  in  speaking  of  her.  In  Italian,  the  dimi- 
nutive of  feminine  nouns  is  often  masculine,  which  here  represents  the  Latin 
neuter,  that  gender  not  being  recognised  in  Italian  grammar,  and  la  tavola,  the 
table,  may  have  il  tavolino,  the  little  tabic,  for  its  diminutive. 

In  the  young  of  animals,  the  general  external  form  marks  the  distinction  of  sex 
much  less  plainly  than  in  the  adult.  This  is  doubtless  the  reason  why  the  neuter 
pronoun  it  is  so  commonly  applied  to  infants  and  other  young  creatures  in 
English,  and  it  may  be  from  analogy  with  this  fact  that  the  diminutives  I  have 
mentioned  have  been  made  neuter.  There  are  many  reasons,  however,  for  be- 
lieving that  grammatical  gender  was  originally  wholly  independent  of  sex. 


110  GRAMMATICAL  GENDER  Lect.  IIJ. 

man  spexik  of  a  woman  as  he,  or  read  the  concluding  sentence 
of  the  preface  to  the  Portuguese  Guide  of  Fonseca  and  Carolino, 
in  which  the  authors,  after  expressing  the  hope  that  their  book 
may  secure  acceptance  with  studious  persons,  add :  *  and  espe- 
cially of  youth,  at  which  we  dedicate  him  particularly.'*  But 
to  us,  who  in  general  treat  inanimate  obiects  as  without  gender, 
it  is  hard  to  see  why  it  should  provoke  the  mirth  of  a  French- 
man, when  a  foreigner,  in  speaking  French,  makes  the  noun 
t  a  b  1  e  a  masculine  instead  of  a  feminine. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  adjectives  also  had  three  genders,  though 
these  were  by  no  means  accurately  or  uniformly  discriminated, 
and  they  had  that  farther  inconvenience,  which  beginners  find 
such  a  stumbling-block  in  German  grammar,  of  distinct  de- 
finite and  indefinite  forms  —  a  subtlety  which  answers  no  pur- 
pose but  to  embarrass  and  confound.  The  adjectives  were 
compared  by  inflection,  and  both  adjective  and  noun  had  several 
inflections  for  case,  but  these  were  not  so  well  discriminated  as 
to  add  essentially  to  precision  of  expression ;  and  I  do  not  know 
that  English  syntax  is  in  any  respect  more  equivocal  or  am- 
biguous for  the  want  of  them. 

Upon  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  while  our  pre- 
sent syntax  is  in  many  respects  more  direct,  precise  and  simple 
than  the  ancient,  the  Anglo-Saxon  grammar  had  no  advantages 
over  the  modern  English  but  these :  first,  greater  liberty  in  the 
arrangement  of  words  in  the  period,  which  is  an  important 
rhetorical  convenience,  both  with  respect  to  force  of  expression 
and  to  melodious  sequence  of  sound;  and,  second,  a  somewhat 
greater  abundance  of  rhymes,  as  well  as  variety  of  metrical  feet, 
which,  in  inflected  languages,  facilitate  poetical  composition  and 
relieve  the   ear   from  the  perpetual   recurrence   of  the   same 


*  O  Novo  Guia  da  Conversa9ao,  em  Portuguez  e  Inglez.  The  New  Guide  of 
the  Conversation  in  Portuguese  and  English,  por  Jose  da  Fonseca  e  Pedro  Caro- 
lino.    Paris,  1855, 

This  is,  I  imagine,  the  most  ridiculous  collection  of  blunders  anywhere  to  be 
found  in  a  single  volume. 


Lect.  III.  ENGLISH   GRAMMAR  111 

pairs  of  rhyming  words  now  become  so  wearisome  in  English 
poetry.* 

English  grammar  is  now  too  settled,  if  not  in  its  forms,  at 
least  in  its  tendencies,  to  be  likely  to  revive  any  of  the  obsolete 
characteristics  of  Anglo-Saxon  inflection,  but  we  may  possibly 
restore,  for  poetical  purposes,  the  old  English  infinitive  and 
plural  verbal  endings  in  en,  as  to  loven  for  to  love,  they  loven 
for  they  love,  which  Spenser  did  not  scruple  freely  to  use, 
though  in  his  time  they  were  quite  obsolete  in  prose.  Lan- 
guage seldom  goes  back  in  its  forms,  though  the  re-animation 
of  seemingly  dead  words  is  common  in  all  literatures.  The 
freedom  of  syntactical  arrangement  which  was  possessed  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  irrecoverably  gone,  and  it  is  the  only  one  of  our 
losses  for  which  modern  syntax  gives  us  no  equivalent.  But 
this  was  a  rhetorical,  not  a  logical  advantage;  for  the  usual 
order  of  words  in  Anglo-Saxon  did  not  conform  to  any  natural 
or  so  called  logical  succession,  and  therefore  —  though  it  might 
make  a  period  more  effective,  in  a  spoken  harangue,  by  putting 
the  most  stirring  words  in  the  most  prominent  positions,  or 
where,  according  to  the  national  periodic  intonation,  the  em- 
phasis naturally  falls  —  yet  it  did  not  make  the  grammatical 
construction  clearer,  but,  on  the  contrary,  rather  tended  to 
involve  and  obscure  it.t 

The  principal  philological  gains  to  be  expected  from  the 
study  of  Anglo-Saxon  are,  a  more  thorough  acquaintance  with 
English  etymology  and  a  better  understanding  of  the  radical  lin- 
guistic principles  which  are  the  foundation  of  the  grammatical 
structure  of  our  mother  tongue;  and  we  sliall  gain,  as  I  have 
already  remarkea,  a  considerable  adaition  ot  expressive  native 
words  to  the  present  vocabulary  and  a  corresponding  enrich- 
ment of  our  literary  diction.  That  the  revival  of  words  of  the 
Gothic  stock  will  supplant  or  expel  much  of  the  Eomance  por- 
tion of  our  modern  English  is  neither  to  be  expected  nor  de- 

*  See  First  Series,  Lectures  XXIII.  and  XXIV. 
t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XVI,  pp.  352,  358. 


112  REVIVAL  OF  ANGLO-SAXON   WORDS  Lect.  III. 

sired.  Social  life  in  our  time  has  become  too  many-sided,  it 
appropriates  too  much  of  the  new  and  foreign,  and  resuscitates 
too  much  of  the  departed  and  the  dormant,  to  be  content  with 
anything  short  of  the  utmost  largeness  of  expression.  Images, 
if  not  ideas,  are  multiplying  more  rapidly  than  appropriate 
names  for  them,  and  our  vocabulary  will  continue  to  extend  as 
long  as  our  culture  advances. 

The  view  I  have  taken  of  Anglo-Saxon  grammar  is  extremely 
general,  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say,  superficial,  but 
anything  of  minuteness  and  fulness  would  be  inconsistent  with 
oral  exhibition,  and  would,  moreover,  consume  such  an  amount 
of  time  that  too  little  would  be  left  for  the  discussion  of  points 
of  more  immediate  interest.  A  comparison  of  a  few  periods 
from  the  narrative  of  Ohther  in  King  Alfred's  Orosius,  and  from 
the  preface  to  Alfred's  Jioethius,  with  English  translations, 
mil  serve  better  than  more  of  formal  detail,  to  illustrate  the 
most  important  differences  between  the  two  languages*;  and  in 
future  lectures  I  shall  endeavour  to  convey  a  general  notion  of 
the  gradual  processes  of  linguistic  change,  by  presenting  a 
psalm  and  a  chapter  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Grospels  with  a  series 
of  versions  of  the  same  in  the  successive  stages  of  English.  Be- 
fore proceeding  to  the  comparative  analysis,  it  isL  necessary  to 
present  a  few  paradigms  of  the  principal  parts  of  speech  in 
Anglo-Saxon;  the  other  grammatical  peculiarities  of  the  lan- 
guage may  be  gradually  brought  out  as  we  advance  in  the  de- 
composition and  construction  of  sentences.! 

*  See  niustrat:on  IV.,  at  ead  of  this  Lecture, 
t  See  Illustration  III.,  at  end  of  this  Lecture. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


I.  (p.  95.) 

ANGLO-SAXON   POWER   OF   DERIVATION   AND   DEVELOPMENT   OF 
RADICAL   SIGNIFICATION    OF   WORDS. 

From  Turner's  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  Appendix  I. 

Ancient  Noun: 

hyge  or  hige,  mind  or  thought. 

Secondary  meaning: — care,  diligence,  study, 
hog  a,  care, 
hogu,  care,  industry,  effort. 

Adjectives,  being  the  noun  so  applied: 
hige,  diligent,  studious,  attentive, 
hoga,  prudent,  solicitous. 

Verbs  from  the  noun : 

hogian,  to  meditate,  to  study,  to  think,  to  be  wise;    to  be 
anxious :  and  hence,  to  groan. 

,  -^  ^       '    I   to  study,  to  be  solicitous,  to  endeavour, 
hyggan,  )  *'' 

hicgan,    )    to  study,  to  explore,  to  seek  vehemently,  to  en- 

hycgan,  j        deavour,  to  siruggle. 

Secondary  noun  derived  from  the  verb : 

hogung,  care,  effort,  endeavour. 

Secondary  nouns  compounded  of  the  ancient  noun  and  another : 

higecrasft,  acuteness  of  mind. 

higeleast,  negligence,  carelessness. 

higesorga,  anxieties,  mental  griefs. 

hogascip,  )  , 

,  ■  ■      Y  prudence. 

hogoscip,  )    ^ 

hygeleast,  folly,  madness,  scurrility. 

hygesceaft,  the  mind  or  thought. 

I 


114  NOTES  AND  JLLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  III. 

Adjectives  composed  of  the  ancient  noun  and  a  meaning  Avord: 
hygelease,  void  of  mind,  foolish. 

,  :  °        ^'     I   magnanimous,  excellent  in  mind, 
hige  rot;      J         ^ 

^         r     \   \   prudent, 
hogofeart,  J    ^ 

hog  full,  anxious,  full  of  care, 
hige  frod,  -wise,  prudent  in  mind, 
hige  leas,  negligent,  incurious, 
hige  Strang,  strong  in  mind, 
hige  th ancle,  cautious,  provident,  thoughtful. 
Adverbs  from  the  adjective: 

higeleaslice,  negligently,  incimously. 
hog  full  lice,  anxiously. 
Ancient  Noun: 

Mod,  the  mind;  also,  passion,  irritability. 

Verb: 

modian,     "j  to  be  high-minded, 

modigan,  [■  to  rage, 

modgian,  j  to  swell. 

Adjectives  composed  of  the  noun  and  another  word  or  syllable : 

mod  eg,  I   irritable. 

mo  dig,  j    angry,  proud. 

modful,  full  of  mind,  irritable.  * 

modga,  elated,  proud,  distinguished. 

modhwata,  fervid  in  mind. 

modilic,  magnanimous. 

mod  leas,  weak-minded,  pusillanimous. 

mod  stathol,  firm-minded. 

modthwer,  patient  in  mind,  meek,  mild 
Secondary  nouns  composed  of  the  ancient  noim  and  some  other ; 

mod  get h an c,  thoughts  of  the  mind,  council. 

mod  gethoht,  strength  of  mind,  reasoning. 

mod  gewinne,  conflicts  of  mind. 

modes  mynla,  the  afFections  of  the  mind,  the  inclinations. 

modhete,  heat  of  mind,  anger. 

modleaste,  folly,  pusillanimity,  slothfulness. 

modnesse,  pride. 

modsefa,  the  intellect,  sensation,  intelligence. 

mod  sorg,  grief  of  mind. 


Lr.CT.  111.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  115 

Secondary  nouns,  of  later  formation,  composed  of  an  adjective  and 

another  noim : 

raodiffnesse,  )  ,.  . ,  .        . 

T  .  }■   moodiness,  pride,  animosity, 

modmcsse,     )        .  ?  x        '  j 

mod  seocnesse,  sickness  of  mind. 

mod  statholnysse,  firmness  of  mind,  fortitude. 

mod  sumnesse,  concord. 

mod  thwernesse,  patience,  meekness. 

Adverb  formed  from  the  adjective: 
modiglice,  proudly,  angrily. 

Ancient  Noun: 

Wit        ) 

r^      '  • .    r   the  mind,  genius,  intellect,  sense. 

Gewit,  )  >  o         >  > 

Secondary  meaning:  —  wisdom,  prudence. 

Noun  applied  as  an  adjective: 

wita,  )       .        1  -1^  , 
..       \   wise,  skilful, 
wite,  )  ' 

gewita,  conscious;  hence,  a  witness. 

Verb  formed  from  the  noun : 

wit  an,  to  know,  to  perceive, 
gewitan,  to  understand, 
witegian,  to  prophesy. 

Adjectives  composed  of  the  ancient  noun,  and  an  additional  syllable 
or  word : 

wittig,  wise,  skilled,  ingenious,  prudent, 
ge-witig,  knowing, 
ge-witleas,  ignorant,  foolish, 
ge- wittig,  intelligent,  conscious, 
ge-witseoc,  ill  in  mind,  demoniac, 
witol,  wittol,  wise,  knowing. 

Secondary  nouns  formed  of  the  ancient  noun  and  another  noun : 
witedom,  the  knowledge  of  judgment,  prediction, 
witega,  a  prophet, 
witegung,  prophecy, 
wite  saga,  a  prophet, 
ge-witleast,  folly,  madnees. 
ge-wit  loca,  the  mind, 
ge-witness,  witness. 

I  2 


116  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  III. 

ge-witseipe,  witness. 

wite-clofe,  trifles. 

witsord,  the  answer  of  the  wise. 

Nouns  of  more  recent  tlate,  having  been  formed  ont  of  the  adjectives: 

gewitseocness,  insanity. 

witigdom,  knowledge,  wisdom,  prescience. 

wi  to  In  esse,  knowledge,  wisdom. 
Secondary  adjective,  formed  upon  the  secondary  noun: 

witedomlic,  prophetical. 

Conjunctions ; 

J , .     'I  indeed,  for,  but,  to-wit. 
witodlice,  j  J       >        ) 

Adverbs  formed  from  particij^les  and  adjectives : 

witendlice,  )    .         ,     . 

•  xx-    T  1    knowmgly. 

wittiglice,    J  ^^ 

Ancient  Noun: 

Ge-thanc,  )     .        •    i   ^i        i ,.       •  • 
p      ,  Y  the  mmd,  thought,  opmion. 

thane,  the  will. 
til  one,  the  thought. 

Secondary  meaning :  an  act  of  the  will,  or  thanks. 

^T°.'        ha  council, 
ge-thmg,) 

And  from  the  consequence  conferred  from  sitting  at  the  council  came 

ge-thincth,  honour,  dignity. 
Verbs  formed  from  the  noun  : 

thine  an,   ]  to  think,  to  conceive,  to  feel,  to  reason,  to  con- 

thencan,  I       sider. 


ncan,   ] 

mean,  I 

ffe-thencan,     )         ,  .  , 
^     . ,  '      F  to  thmk. 

ge-the.ngcan,  j 


[  to  thank. 


thancian 

ge-thancian, 

thingan,  to  address,  to  speak,  to  supplicate. 

ge-thancmetan,  to  consider. 

Adjectives  formed  from  the  ancient  norm  : 

thancol,  )    ,       ,   „  ,        -,.     . 

,|  -.    Y  thoughtful,  meditative,  cautions. 

ge-thancol,  mindful. 


Lect.  III.     :  NOTES   AND    ILLUSTEATIONS  117 

tliancful,  thankful,  ingenious,  content, 
tliancwurtli,  grateful. 
thancolmodj  provident,  wise. 

Secondary  nouns  formed  from  the  verb  : 
thoht,        ")    ,  .  1  .         T        7 
ge-thoht,  }  """'^""S,  thought. 

ge-tlieaht,  council, 
ge-theahtere,  councillor, 
thancung,  thanking, 
thancmetuncg,  deliberation. 
Secondary  verb  from  secondary  noun  : 
ge-theahtian,  to  consult. 

More  recent  noun  from  this  verb : 

ge-theathing,  council,  consultation. 

Another  secondary  verb : 

ymbethencan,  to  think  about  any  thing. 
Adjective  from  secondary  verb  : 

ge-theahtendlic,  consulting. 
Adverb  from  adjective  : 

thane wurth lice,  gratefully. 

It  is  evident  that  in  this  list,  which  might  be  considerably  enlarged 
from  the  same  roots,  different  orthogi'aphical  forms  are  occasionally 
given  as  different  words,  and  the  proficient  in  Anglo-Saxon  will  see 
that  there  is  room  for  criticism  in  several  other  respects.  But  I  choose 
to  print  my  author  as  I  find  him  in  the  Philadelphia  edition  of  1841, 
making  no  changes  in  the  words,  except,  to  lessen  the  chances  of  typo- 
graphical mistake,  the  (substitution  of  the  modern  English  for  the  Saxon 
character.  There  is  always  something  to  be  learned  from  even  the 
errors  of  a  scholar, — at  least  the  lesson  of  humility,  when  we  consider 
our  own  liability  to  similar  shortcomings. 


ir.  (p.  97.) 

MONOSYLLABIC    CATALAN   I'OETRT. 

The  rarity  of  Catalan  books  in  America  justifies  me,  I  think,  in 
printing  a  part  of  this  poem,  which  Ballot  y  Torres,  who  quotes  it  in 


118  UOTES   AND   ILLUSTKATIONS  Lkct.  III. 

the  preface  to  his  Gramatica  y  Apologia  de   la  Llengua  Cathalana, 
thus  introduces : 

*  He  ja  dit  tambe  que  ab  dificultat  se  podra  trobar  altra  llengua,  que 
sia  mes  breu  y  concisa  que  la  nostra ;  j  axo  es  per  la  abundancia  que 
te  de  monossillabos,  com  es  de  veurer  en  las  seguents  quartetas,  que 
compongue  lo  numen  poetich  de  Don  Ignasi  FeiTeras,  doctor  en  medi- 
cina.' 

QUAKTETAS. 

A  Deu,  un  en  tres,  y  al  Fill  fet  horn. 

Un  sol  Deu,  que  tot  ho  pot, 
Es  lo  qui  es,  un  ser  en  tres : 
No  son  tres  Deus,  un  sol  es 
Lo  Deu  del  eel,  que  es  en  tot. 

Si  ab  est  tin  sol  ser  tres  son, 
Com  pot  ser  no  mes  que  un  Deu, 
Qui  fa  lo  foch  y  la  neu. 
La  Hum,  los  eels  y  lo  mon  ? 

■ 

Un  sol  es  ;  puix  a  ser  tres, 
Fins  a  tres  sers  se  han  de  dar ; 

Y  si  es  un  sol  ser,  es  clar 
Que  es  un  sol  Deu  y  no  mes. 

Es  ell  lo  qui  ha  fet  lo  Hum, 
Lo  blanch,  lo  foch  y  lo  net, 
Per  qui  dels  pits  surt  la  llet, 
Per  qui  del  foch  ix  lo  fum. 

Es  del  mon  y  dels  eels  rey, 
Qui  tot  ho  te  dins  sa  ma  : 
Tot  lo  que  vol  ell,  se  fa. 
Que  tot  quant  vol  es  sa  lley. 

Al  torn  seu  son  tots  los  sants,  . 

Y  prop  d'ell  son  los  chors  nou, 

Y  en  un  sol  chor  la  veu  se  on, 
De  sant,  sant,  sant,  en  fins  cants. 

etc.        etc.        etc. 


Leot.  III.  KOTES   AND    ILLUSTEATIONS  ll9 

III.   (p.    112.) 
ANGLO-SAXON   INFLECTIONAL   PARADIGMS. 

THE  AKTICLE. 

Most  grammarians  agree  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  had  neither  definite 
nor  indefinite  article.  Klipstein  treats  the  declinable  se,  seo,  ]>£et, 
and  the  indeclinable  ]>e,  both  of  which  are  generally  considered  pro- 
perly pronouns,  as  definite  articles,  but  he  denies  that  there  was  an  in- 
definite. In  the  early  stages  of  the  language,  for  example  in  Beowulf, 
the  poems  of  Ca?dmon,  and  other  ancient  monuments,  the  nouns  are 
commonly  construed,  as  in  Latin,  without  a  determinative;  but  at  later 
periods  both  se,  seo,  }>a3t,  and  f  e,  are  employed  as  definite  articles. 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  an,  one,  served  as  an  indefinite,  as  in  the 
second  of  the  passages  quoted  from  Ohther,  in  Illustration  IV.,  post, 
an  port,  a  harbour,  and  an  mycelea,  a  great  river,  Pauli's  Alfred, 
p.  248,  &c.  We  must  therefore  either  admit  both  articles  or  reject 
both. 

S  e,  s  e  6,  ])  £6 1,  is  thus  inflected  : 


Singular, 

m. 

/ 

n. 

N. 

se 

se6 

piSt 

G. 

pffis 

pse're 

pajs 

D. 

pam 

])ae're 

pam 

A. 

pone 

pa 

pa^t. 

Fhiral 

N- 

l>a 

G. 

para 

D. 

pam 

A. 

Pa. 

NOUNS. 


The  following  table  shows  the  variable  endings  of  the  noung  in  the 
different  declensions. 


120  KOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  III. 


SIMPLE   ORDER. 

First  Declendon, 

Singular. 

Masc. 

Fein. 

mut 

Noir 

i. 

-a 

-e 

-e 

Gen 

-an 

-an 

-an 

Dat.  and   1 
Abl.      J 

-an 

-an 

-an 

Ace. 

-an 

-an 

Tlural, 

-e 

Nom.  and  Ace. 

-an 

Gen. 

-ena 

Dat.  and  Abl. 

-um 

COMPLEX   ORDER. 

Second  Declension. 

Third  Declension. 

Singular. 

Singular. 

Masc. 

Fern. 

Neut. 

Masc. 

Fern.        Neut. 

Nom. 

-(-e) 

— 

— 

-u 

-u         -(-e) 

Gen. 

-es 

-e 

-es 

-a 

-e         -es 

Dat.  and 
Abl. 

} 

-e 

-e 

-e 

-a 

-e         -e 

Ace. 

•■(e) 

-e 

— 

-u 

-e         -(-e) 

Nom.  anc 
Ace. 

! 

-as 

Bural. 
-a 



-a 

Flural. 
-a         -u 

Gen. 

-a' 

-a(-ena)  -a 

-a 

-a  (-ena) -a 

Dat.  and 

Abl. 

• 

-um 

-um 

-um 

-um 

-um     -um 

ADJECTIVES. 

Indefinite  endings. 

Singular. 

Flural, 

N. 

m. 

/. 

n. 

m.f.  n. 
-e  (-U) 

G. 

-es 

-re 

-es 

-ra 

P. 

-Tim 

-re 

-um 

-um  (-on,  -an) 

A. 

-ne 

-e 

. — 

-e. 

rr.  III. 

KOTES  AND 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

Definite  endings. 

Singular. 

Flural. 

m. 

/. 

n. 

m.f.  n-. 

N. 

-a 

-e 

-e 

-an 

G. 

-an 

-an 

-an 

-ena 

D. 

-an 

-an 

-an 

-um  (-on,  -an) 

A. 

-an 

-an 

-e 

-an 

121 


COMPAEISOK 
The  Comparative  is  formed  from  the  Positive  indefinite  by  annexing 
-ra  for  the  masculine,  -re  for  the  feminine  and  neuter;  the  Superlative 
from  the  same  by  adding  -ost  or  -est  for  the  indefinite,  and  -est a  for 
the  masculine,  -este  for  the  feminine  and  neuter,  definite  form. 


PRONOUNS. 

First  Person, 

Singular. 

Dual. 

Plural. 

N. 

ic 

wit 

we 

G. 

mia 

imcer 

ui'e 

D. 

me 

unc 

us 

A. 

me 

unc 

us. 

Second  Person. 

Singular, 

Dual. 

Plural. 

N. 

I'-i 

git 

ge 

G. 

]>in 

incer 

eower 

D. 

H 

inc 

eow 

A. 

Vi 

inc 

eow. 

Third  Person. 

Singular. 

Plural. 

m. 

f. 

n. 

m.f.  n. 

N. 

he 

heo 

hit; 

hi 

G. 

his 

hire 

his 

hira 

D. 

him 

hire 

him 

him 

A. 

hine 

hi 

hit 

hi. 

The  Possessive  Pronouns  are  the  genitives  of  personal  pronouns  of 
the  first  and  second  persons,  treated  as  nominative  stem-forms,  and  de- 
clined like  the  indefinite  adjective.  There  is  no  possessive  pronoun  of 
the  third  person,  the  genitive  plural  of  the  personal  pronoun  being  used 
instead. 


122  NOTJEIS   AND   ILLUSTRATIO:iS  Lect.  UF. 


RELATIVE  AND  INTERROGATIVE  PEONOUNS. 

The  parts  of  speech  given  under  the  head  Article,  declinable  and 
indeclinable,  are  generally  used  as  Eelative  Prononns.  The.  Interro- 
gative is  thus  declined : 


Singular, 

m.f. 

n. 

K 

hwd 

hwset 

G. 

hwaes 

hwass 

D. 

hwam 

hwam 

A. 

hwone 

hwajt. 

VERBS. 

There  are  several  classes  of  verbs,  both  strong,  or  inflected  by  aug- 
mentation, and  weak,  or  inflected  by  letter-change.  A  few  examples 
of  each  must  suffice. 

SIMPLE  ORDER,  OR  FIRST  CONJUGATION. 

INDICATIVE  MODE. 

Present. 


Class  I. 

Class  II. 

Class  III. 

Sing.                 ic  luf-ige 

hyr-e 

tell-e 

\Vi  luf-ast 

hyr-st 

tel-st 

he  luf-a6 

hjv-^ 

tel-3 

Plur.    we,  ge,  hi  luf-ia3 

hyr-aS 

tell-aS 

If,  as  in  interrogative  sentences,  the  pronoun  follow  the  verb,  the 
plural  is  luf-ige,  hyr-e,  tell-e. 

Imperfect, 
Sing. 

Flur. 


Sing, 
Plur. 


ic    luf-ode 
Jju  luf-odest 
he  luf-ode 
we,  ge,  hi  luf-odon 

hyr-de 
hyr-dest 
hyr-de 
hyr-don 

teal-de 
teal-dest 
teal-de 
teal-don 

SUBJUNCTIVE  MODE. 

Present. 

luf-ige 
luf-ion 

h}T--e 
hyr-on 

tcll-e 
tell-on. 

LiXT.    111. 


NOTES   AND    ILLUSTRATIOJSS 


123 


Imjjerfict. 


Sing. 
Plur. 


Sing. 
Plur. 


Pres. 

Gerund. 
Part.  Pres. 
and  Active 

andPassL  }  ^^'^^^  ^'^^"^^         fe^")  ^^^"^^      fe^")  ^^-^' 


•:] 


luf-ode                hyr-de 
luf-odon              hyr-don 

teal-de 
teal- don. 

IMPERATIVE  MODE. 

luf-a                     hjv 
riuf-iat5               f'hyr-aS 
1  luf-ige               I  hyr-e 

tel-e  - 
ftell-ab 
1  tell-e. 

INFINITIVE  MODE. 

luf-ian                  hyr-an 
to  luf-igenne        to  hyr-enne 

tell-an 

to  tell-anne 

luf-igende            hyr-ende 

tell-ende 

COMPLEX  OEDEE,  OE  SECOND  CONJUGATION. 

INDICATIVE  MODE. 

Present. 


Sing, 

Plur. 

Sing. 
Plur. 


Sing. 
Plur. 


Class  I. 

Class  II. 

Class  III 

brece 

healde 

drage 

bricst 

hyltst 

drasgst 

bric6 

hylt  (healt) 

drjegS 

breca?5 

J  healdaS 
\  healde 

r  dragaS 
\  drage 

brece 

Im'perfcct. 

brjec 

heold 

dr6h 

brasce 

heolde 

droge 

braec 

heold 

droh 

breecon 

heold  on 

drogon 

SUBJUNCTIVE  MODE. 

Present. 

brecG 

healde 

drage 

brecon 

healdon 

'    dragon 

124 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lect.  II!. 


Sing, 
Plur, 


Sing. 
Plur.     I 


Pres. 

Gerund 
Part.  Pres. 
and  Active 


Imperfect, 

brffi'ce  heolcle 

braj'con  heoldon 


.droge 
droffon. 


IMPEEATIVE  MODE. 

brec  heald  drag 

J  healdaS  J  dragaS 

\  drage. 


brecaS 
brece 


\  healde 


INFINITIVE  MODE. 


brecan 
to  brecanne 

brecende 


healdan  dragan 

to  healdanne      to  draganne 

healdende         dragende 


res.  1 
ive  J 

andPa^'ssL  \  fe"")  ^^^^'^       ^^e-)  healden    (ge-)  dragen. 

The  perfect  and  pluperfect  tenses  are  formed,  as  in  the  cognate 
Gothic  languages  and  in  modern  English,  by  the  verb  h  abb  an,  to 
have,  used  as  an  auxiliary  with  the  past  or  passive  participle. 

There  is  no  true  passive  voice;  but,  as  in  English,  the  place  of  the 
passive  is  supplied  by  the  past  or  passive  participle,  with  the  substan- 
tive verb  wesan,  to  be,  as  an  auxiliary. 

Wesan  is  thus  conjugated  : 


INDICATIVE  MODE. 


Present 


Plur. 


ic  eom 

pu  eart 

he  is,  ys 

we,  gG,  hi  synd,  syndon 


wass 
w^re 

W£E3 

waeron. 


Present,  s. 
Plur. 


Sing, 


SUBJUNCTIVE  MODE. 

sy,  sig,  seo  Imperfect,  s.     weere 

syn 


Plur. 


wes 

Gerund. 
Part.  Pres 
„    Past 


nrPERATIVE. 

Plur.    I 

t(5  wesanne 
wesende 
(ge-)  wesen. 


waeron. 

wesaS 
wese 


Lect.  III.  NOTES  AND   ILLrSIBATIONS  125 

The  Anglo-Saxon  verb  has  no  future  tense  in  either  mode ;  the  pre- 
sent being  employed  instead  of  a  future.  The  present  of  the  defective 
verb  beon,  to  be,  however,  has  frequently  a  distinct  future  significa- 
tion, and  thus  serves'as  a  future  to  wesan. 

Beon  is  thus  conjugated  : 

Indie,  pres. 


Plur. 
Infin.     beon, 


1.  beo 

2.  byst 

3.  byS 
r  beoS 
1  beo 

Ger.     to  beonne, 

Suhj.  pres.      beo 

Plur.                beon 

Imper.             beo 

r>;                 fbeoS 
Plur.            <  ,    , 
Ibeo 

,             Part.pres.     beondc. 

IV. 

(p. 

112.) 

EXTEACTS   FROM    OIITIIEIl's   NAEEATIVE,   AND   FROM   ALFEED's 
TRANSLATION    OF   BOETIIIUS. 

This  narrative,  which  is  introduced  by  King  Alfred  into  his  transla- 
tion of  Orosius,  is  interesting  both  as  being,  so  far  as  style  is  concerned, 
probably  Alfred's  own  work,  and  as  containing  the  earliest  authentic 
information  we  possess  concerning  the  geography  and  the  people  of  the 
countries  it  describes.  In  what  language  Ohther  communicated  with 
the  king  does  not  appear,  but  it  was  probably  in  the  Old-Northern 
rather  than  in  the  Anglo-Saxon.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
the  two  speeches  resembled  each  other  sufficiently,  in  the  ninth  century, 
to  be  mutually  intelligible  to  those  using  them,  and  there  is  evidence 
that  the  lays  of  the  Northern  bards  who  visited  England  were  under- 
stood by  at  least  the  Saxon  nobles. 

I  give  :  1.  the  Anglo-Saxon  text,  from  the  appendix  to  Pauli's  Life 
of  Alfred.  London,  1857;  I  have,  however,  to  diminish  the  chances 
of  typographical  error,  used  the  common  English  type  instead  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  letter,  so  far  as  the  alphabets  correspond;  2.  an  English 
word-for-word  version;  3.  Thorpe's  translation,  in  Avhich,  as  will  be 
seen  by  the  notes,  I  have  corrected  an  obvious  error;  4.  A  French 
translation  of  Thorpe's  version. 

1.  Fela      spella     him    sa?don      fa     Beormas,  jeg]?er    ge 

2.  Many     things     him     told       the    Beormas,  both 

3.  The  Beormas       told  him  many     particulars,       both 

4.  Les  Beormas  lui  racont^rent    plusieurs      details,  tant 


126 


NOTES   ANP   IIJ^USTRATIONS 


Lect.  III. 


1.  of 

2.  of 
3  of 
4.  de 


hyra 
their 
their 
leur 


agenum 

own 

own 

propre 


lande. 
land 
land, 
pays, 


1.  J)e      ymb       hy     utan    wjeron. 

2.  that  around  them  about    were; 

3.  lying  around  them; 

4.  qui       les  environnaient; 

]>xa       soSes  wajr. 
(of-)  the  sooth  was, 
was  true, 

etait  vrai, 


ge 
and 
and 
que 

ac 
but 
but 
mais 


of 
of 
of 
des 


he 
he 
he 


the 
the  other 
autres 

nyste 
wist-not 
knew  not 


lande 
land 
lands 
pays 

hwajt 
what 
what 


il   ne  savait  pas  ce  qui 


for|)aem  he 
for-that  he 
because  he 
parce  qu'il 

Da    Finnas  him    jnihte. 
The    Finns    him  thought, 

3.  It   seemed  to  him    that  the  Finns  and  the   Beormas     spoke 

4.  II   lui    semblait    que    les  Finois     et    les    Beormas  parluient 


hit  sylf  ne    geseah : 
it    self  not     saw. 
did  not  see  it  himself, 
ne  le  voyait  pas  lui-meme. 

and    ))a    Beormas    sprgecon 
and   the   Beormas     spoke 


1.  neah  an 

2.  nigh  one 

3.  nearly  one       language 

4.  a  peu  pres  un  seul   langage. 


ge'Seode : 
language. 


SwiSost     he     for     Cyder. 
Chiefiiest  he  fared  thither, 
He  went  thither         chiefly, 
II         y  alia       principalement, 


1.  to-eacan 

2.  besides 

3.  in  addition 

4.  non-seulement 

1.  hors-hwailum, 

2.  horse- whales, 

3.  walrusses, 

4.  morses, 

1.  hyra       toSum. 

2.  their        teeth, 

3.  their        teeth, 

4.  leurs    muchoirc 


faes  landes   sceawunge.  for  \>xm 

the  land's       seeing,  for   the 

to      seeing  the  country,     on  account      of  the 
pour     voir      la    contree,    mais  a  cause      des 

for]7a3m     hi  habbaS  swySe  ffiSele  ban     on 

for-that  they  have      very    noble  bones   in 

because  they  have      very    noble  bones   in 

parce  qu'ils  ont         de  belles  defenses  a 


pa       teS        hy     brohton    sume 
these    teeth    they    brought    some 
some    of  these    teeth    they    brought 
defenses    dont    ils    porterent    quelques-unes 

1.  ]7a3m       cynincge.  and  hyra     hyd     biS  swycSe   god        to 

2.  (to-)  the      king:      and  their   hide       is     very  good       for 

3.  to  the         king:      and   their  hidea    are  very   good       for 

4.  au  roi:         ct    leurs  peaux  sont  bonnes  pour  les 


1. 

elna 

lang. 

ac 

on 

2. 

ells 

long; 

but 

in 

3. 

ells 

i 

but 

in 

Lect.  111.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTllATIONS  127 

1.  scip-rapnm :  Se      liwasl      biS        micle        la^ssa 

2.  ship-ropes.  This     whale       is         much  less 

3.  ship-ropes.  This     whale       is         much  less 

4.  cordages  des  navires.     Cette  baleine     est     beaucoup  plus  petite 

1.  Sonne      o6re         hwalas.        ne  biS  he        lengra      J^onne   syfan 

2.  than      other        whales,        not    is    he        longer       than    seven 

3.  than      other        whales,      it  being  not       longer       than    seven 

4.  que  les  autres   baleines,     n'etant    pas  plus  longue  que     sept 

his  agnum  lande         is      se       betsta 
his     own      land  is     the       best 

his     own    country      is     the        best 

4.  aunes  ;    mais  dans  son  propre    pays  il  y  a   la   meilleure 

1.  hw£el-himtaS,  ]'a         beoS  eahta  and  feowertiges     elna 

2.  whale-hunting,  they        are    eight  and       forty  ells 

3.  whale-hunting,      there  they  are  eight -and-forty  ells 

4.  chasse  a  la  baleine,     la      elles  ont  quarante-huit  aunes 

1.  lange.        and   fa        ma^stan      fiftiges  elna  lange.        J^ara 

2.  long,         and  the        largest         fifty     ells  long ;   (of-)  these 

3.  long,         and  the        largest        fifty      ells  long;     of  these 

4.  de  longueur,    et    les  plus  grandes  en  ont  cinquante ;  de  celles-ci 

1.  he  saede  l^aet    he        syxa       sum  ofsloge             syxtig  on 

2.  he  said  that   he  (of-)  six    some  slew                sixty  in 

3.  he   said  that   he  and  five    others  slew                 sixty  in 

4.  il     dit  que   lui  et   cinq  autres  en  avaient  tue    soixante  en 

1.  twam    dagum :'        He  was      swybe      spedig   man      on     ])xm. 

2.  two       days.  He  was     (a)  very    Avealthy  man       in      the 

3.  two       days.  He  was     a  very     wealthy  man       in     those 

4.  deux       jours.  C'etait     un    homme    tres-riche    dans     les 

1.  sehtum  ]>e     heora   speda     on  beo'6.  ^     is       on 

2.  ownings  that    their    wealth    in      is,  that  is        in 

3.  possessions      in    which    their    wealth    consists,         that  is        in 

4.  biens  qui    constituent    leurs     richesses,     c'est-a-dire    en 

1.  wild-deorum  :•     He  hfcfde   ]m-gyt.     ])a     he  pone  cyningc  sohte, 

2.  wild  deer.         He    had       yet,     when  he    the     king    sought, 

3.  wild  deer.         He    had     at  the  time    he   came    to   the  king, 

4.  cerfs  sauvages.      II    avait  a  I'epoque  ou    il     vint  vers  le     roi, 


128 


NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lect.  Ill, 


1.  tamra     deora  unbebohtra  syx    hund  :*        Da    dcor    hi  hataS 

2.  (of-)  tame  deer       unsold      six  hundred.     These  deer  they  hight 

3.  six  hundred  unsold  tame  deer.  These  deer  they  call 

4.  six  cents  cerfs  apprivoises  invendus.       lis  appellent  ces  cerfs 

1.  hranas.  ]>ara           wseron       syx          strel-hranas.          Sa 

2.  reins,       (of-)  them       were        six  stale-reins,-         these 

3.  rein-deer,     of  which  there  were  six      decoy  rein-deer,    which 

4.  des  rennes,  parmi  ceux-ci  six  ^taient  des  rennes  priv^s,    qui 


1.  beoS  SAvySe      dyre 

2.  are  very       dear 

3.  are  very    valuable 

4.  ont  une    grande    valeur 


mid  Finnum.  forStem 

with  (the)  Finns,  for-that 

amongst  the      Fins,  because 

chez  les    Finois,  parce    que 


1.  hy       fod      }>a    wildan    hranas  mid  :• 

2.  they    catch    the     wild       reins         with  (them). 

3.  they    catch   the     wild    rein-deer      with.  them. 

4.  par  leur  moyen  ils  prennent  les  rennes  sauvages. 


Notes,  fela,  indeclinable  adj.  obsolete  in  English,  but  extant  in  Sc. 
fell;  —  spell  a,  ace.  pi.  from  spell,  tidings,  information,  &c.,  obsolete 
in  this  sense,  but  extant  in  spell,  a  charm,  the  verb  to  spell,  and  the 
last  syllable  of  Gospel; — see  don,  3.  p.  pi.  imp.  indie,  from  secgan, 
s  egg  an,  scegan,  to  say,  or  tell; — a^g^er  ge — ge,  both — and,  extant, 
as  an  alternative  only,  in  either,  not  as  a  conjunctive.  Aeg'^er  is  more 
generally  used  in  the  sense  of  io^A  than  bd,  bu,  bdtwd  {bd,  both, 
twd,  two),  but  a,  butu,  butiva,  which  are  the  etymological  equivalents 
of  both,  or  than  beg  en; — of,  about,  from,  out  of,  but  never  sign  of 
possessive  in  Anglo-Saxon; — hyra,  poss.  pi.  of  the  3.  p.  of  the  personal 
pronoun.  See  p.  121; — \a;m,  dat.  for  more  common  form  ]>dm; — ymb, 
Ger.  um,  about,  around,  obsolete;  ac, — but,  obsolete.  Butan,  bute, 
exists  in  Anglo-Saxon  as  a  conjunction,  though  seldom  used.  Alfred 
employs  it  in  Boethius,  c.  xxxiv.  §  10. ;  —  nyste,  3.  p.  sing,  imp.indic. 
from  nit  an  or  nytan,  not  to  know,  a  negative  verb  formed  by  the 
coalescence  of  the  particle  ne,  not,  and  witan,  to  know.  The  tendency 
to  coalescent  formations  was  carried  further  in  Early  English  than  in 
Anglo-Saxon.  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XVIII  ; — l>fl?s  so'Ses,  so^es 
is  the  genitive  of  the  noun  soS,  and  the  phrase  nearly  corresponds  to 
the  of  a  timth,  of  the  scriptural  dialect; — ]>uhte,  3.  p.  sing.  imp.  indie, 
from  yincan,  to  seem,  here  used  impersonally  with  the  dative  him, 
as,  in  the  modern  form,  with  the  first  person,  me-thought ;  —  ge^eode, 


Lect.  III. 


NOTES   AND    ILLUSTRATIONS 


129 


language,  obsolete; — swi^ost,  superlative,  from  swi^e,  very  much. 
The  root  is  adj.  swi^,  swy'^,  strong,  powerful,  great,  which,  with  its 
twenty  derivatives  and  compounds,  is  entirely  obsolete.  It  is  a  singular 
instance  of  the  mixture  of  vocabularies  in  English,  that  so  common  and 
so  simple  a  native  word  should  have  been  superseded  by  a  borrowed 
root.  Very  is  the  Latin  verum,  French  vrai,  and  was  at  first  used  in 
English  as  an  adjective.     Thus  Chaucer,  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale  : 

Thurgh  which  he  may  his  veray  frendes  see ; 

to-eacan,  extant  in  eke; — sceawunge,  root  extant  in  show,  but  with 
an  objective  meaning; — hors-hivcelum,  Icel.  rosmhvalr,  wahms; — 
CB'^ele,  Ger.  edel,  nolle,  precious,  obsolete  in  English;  —  mcestan, 
nom.  pi.  superlative,  definite,  associate  with  my  eel,  large.  Thorpe 
translates  ])a  mcestan,  Uhemostof  them, ^  \fhich  is  a  strange  oyer&ight, 
for  mcest  is  properly  significative  of  quantity,  not  of  number;  and  be- 
sides, this  rendering  is  inconsistent  with  the  context,  because  if  the 
general  length  of  the  whole  was  forty-eight  ells,  '  the  most  of  them ' 
could  not  have  been  fifty  ells  long ; — spedig,  prosperous.  Our  modem 
verb  to  speed  means,  often,  to  prosper;  —  "p,  contraction  for  \a2t;  — 
hata^,  we  use  hight  only  in  a  passive  sense,  but  hat  an  like  the  Ger. 
heissen,  meant  both  to  call  and  to  be  called. 


FKOM  THE  SAME. 

1.  Ohthere  saede     f     sio     scir  hatte      Halgoland     J^e    he    on 

2.  Ohthere  said  that  the    shire  hight      Halgoland  that  he    in 

3.  Ohthere  said  that  the    shire  in  which    he  dwelt     is  called 

4.  Ohthere  dit  que    le    comte  ou      ildemeurait  s'appelle 

1.  bude*.'         He    cwajS      f      nan    man    ne    bude    be    norSan 

2.  dwelt.  He     said     that     no     man   not  dwelt   by     north 

3.  Halgoland.      He    said     that     no      one  dwelt  to  the  north 

4.  Halgoland.       II       dit      que     personne     n'habitait  plusaunord 

1.  him*.'  Donne     is     an     port     on      suSeweardum         f»ajm 

2.  (of)  him.  There     is      a      port     to        southAvards  (of)    that 

3.  of  him.     There  is  likewise  a     port   to  the         south        of      that 

4.  que  lui.       H  y  a     aussi    tin  port     au  sud         de     cette 

1.  lande,       J)one     man     hajt     Scyringes-heal.       ])ySer     he  cwse'S 

2.  land,       which   men   hight    Scyringes-heal;     thither,    he    said, 

3.  land,       which     is      called   Scyringes-heal;     thither,    he    said, 

4.  contree,      qui      est     appele  Scyringes-heal ;    a  ce  port,    dit-il, 


130  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  III. 

1.  f     man     ne    mihte    geseglian     on     anum    monde,    gyf  man 

2.  that  one  not  might  sail  in  one  month,  if  one 
8.  no  one  could  sail  in  a  month,  if  he 
4.            personne  ne  pent  naviguer  dans      nn       mois,  s'il 

1.  on  niht      wicode,     and    aslce    da^ge    h^fde    ambyrne     wind. 

2.  by  night     lay-by,     and    each    day       had         fair  wind; 

3.  landed     at  night,    and   every  day       had       a  fair  wind ; 

4.  abordait    de  nuit,  et  que  chaque  jour  il  eut   un  vent  favorable ; 

1.  and  ealle    ]>a   hwile  he    sceal    seglian  be     lande.     and  on  |;a3t 

2.  and    all     the  while  he  should     sail      by  (the)  land,  and  on  the 

3.  and  *  all     the  while  he  would     sail    along  the  land,  and  on  the 

4.  et    tout     le   temps  il         cotoyerait  la  terre,  et       au 

1.  steorbord       him       biS         aerest  Iraland.    and    ]7onne     J^a 

2.  starboard  (of )  him  will-be      erst  Iraland,    and     then      the 

3.  starboard  will         first  be         Iraland,    and     then      the' 

4.  tribord  il  y  aura  premierement   Iraland,     et     ensuite    les 

1.  igland      ])e  synd      betux    Iralande.  and  ]>issum  lande*. •  Donne 

2.  islands  which  are  betwixt    Iraland    and    this      land.      Then 

3.  islands   which  are  between   Iraland    and     this      land.       Then 

4.  iles        qui   sont    entre      Iraland      et      cette  contree.  Ensuite 

1.  is     J>is     land    oS         he         cymS         to    Sciringes-heale,  and 

2.  is    this     land    till         he        cometh       to    Sciringes-heal,    and 

3.  it  is  this     land  until       he         comes         to    Sciringes-heal,    and 

4.  c'est  cette  contree  jusqu'a  ce  qu'il  vienne  a     Sciringes-heal,     et 

1.  ealne     weg     on  |)£et  bsecbord     NorSwege.       wi6     suSan   J»one 

2.  all  (the)  way   on  the  larboard,      Norway.  To  south  (of) 

3.  all  the  way     on  the  larboard,      Norway.      To  the  south      of 

4.  tout  le  trajet       au      babord,c'estlaNorvege.     Au       sud       de 

1.  Sciringes-heal     fyl3     swySe   my  eel  sse        up  in   on  ]?a3t 

2.  Sciringes-heal  runs(a)  very      great  sea       up  into  the 

3.  Sciringes-heal        a          very  great  sea     runs,  up  into  the 

4.  Sciringes-heal     une           vaste  mer  s'avance  dans  la 

1.  land,    seo   is  bradre  fonne  eenig  man         oferseon        msege. 

2.  land,  which  is  broader  than    any    man         over-see         may, 

3.  land,  which  is  broader  than    any     one  can  see  over, 

4.  terre,  qui   est  si  large   que     personne  nepeutvoirdel'autrecote, 


Lect.  III.  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTKATIONS  131 

1.  and  is  Gotland      on      oSre    liealfe    ongean.  and  siSSa  Sill ende'." 

2.  and  is  Gotland  on(the)  other     side      against,  and  then    Seeland. 

3.  and  Jutland  is  opposite  on  the  other    side,     and  then    Seeland. 

4.  et  Jutland  est  vis-a-vis  de    I'autre      cote,      et    apres  Seelande. 

1.  Seo  S32       li8        msenig       hund     mila  up     in     on  fset  land. 

2.  This  sea     lieth       many     hundred  miles  up     in          that  land. 

3.  This  sea      lies        many                    miles  up     in          that  land. 

4.  Cette  mer  s'avance  plusieurs                milles        dans          ce    pays. 

1.  and     of     Sciringes-heal  he  cwas'S    f    he  seglode  on  fif  dagan 

2.  And  from  Sciringes-heal  he    said   that  he    sailed    in  five  days 

3.  And  from  Sciringes-heal  he    said   that  he    sailed    in  five  days 

4.  Et      de     Sciringes-heal   il     dit       qu'il     navigua  en  cinq  jours 

1.  to  ]>a3m  porte      J>e  mon  hset        set-HajSum.       se       stent 

2.  to  the  port      that  men  hight       at-Heaths;       this     stands 

3.  to     the  port    which     is  called  ^t-Ha3thum;  which     Is 

4.  a      ce  port       qui  est  appele  -^t-Hajthum;    qui        est 

1.  betuh       Winedum    and  Seaxum.  and    Angle,    and       hyrS 

2.  betwixt    (the)  Wends  and  Saxons,    and    Angles,    and    belongs 

3.  between     the  Wends  and  Seaxons,  and    Angles,    and    belongs 

4.  situe  entre  lesWendes   et  les  Saxons,  etles  Angles,  et  qui  appartient 

1.  in  on       Dene. 

2.  to     (the)  Danes. 

3.  to      Denmark. 

4.  au     Danemarc. 

Notes.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  construction  of  this  passage  conforms 
more  nearly  than  that  of  the  former  to  the  English  idiom.  I  make  no  attempt 
to  solve  the  geographical  difiiculties  it  presents,  but  it  is  well  to  observe  that 
some  critics  suppose  that  Ir aland  should  be  read  Isaland  or  Island, 
Iceland,  and  that  Gotland  is  not  Jutland,  as  translated  by  Thorpe, 
hut  the  inland  of  GotJiland.  hude  is  still  extant  in  the  noun  booth, 
and  the  last  syllable  of  neigh&oz^r  is  from  the  same  root; — cz^a?S,  from 
CIO e^ an  or  civw6an,  is  the  modern  quoth; — a7i,  one,  is  the  origin  of 
the  indefinite  article  a,  an; — port  is  no  doubt  the  Latin  portus; 
— wicode,  imp.  indie,  from  ivician.  The  root  wic  seems  to  have 
meant  originally  an  abiding  or  resting  place,  a  station.  The  Northmen, 
who  depended  principally  on  navigation  for  a  livelihood,  applied  the 
corresponding  Old-Northern  vik,  exclusively,  to  a  bay  or  harbour  of 

K  2 


132  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  III. 

refuge;  the  Anglo-Saxons,  to  any  place  of  abode,  as  a  town.  This  is 
the  probable  origin  of  the  termination  —wich  in  Norwich^  &c.  In  this 
passage;,  ivicode  involves  the  notion  of  a  bay,  as  a  coaster  could  not  lie- 
by  without  entering  a  harbour;  —  amhyrne^  obsolete  in  English;  — 
(erest,  erst,  superlative  of  «r,  ere;  —  bi^,  from  be  on,  to  be,  has  here 
the  force  of  a  future;  —  bcecbord,  now  superseded  by  larboard. 
Kichardson  gives  no  earlier  authority  for  this  latter  word  than  Ealeigh. 
Babord,  evidently  identical  with  bcecbord,  is  found  in  most  of  the 
European  languages,  but  no  satisfactory  etymology  has  been  suggested 
for  either  word ;  —  ]>e  man  hmt  cet- Ha; ^um.  This  use  of  the  dative, 
singular  or  plural,  with  a  preposition,  as  the  appellative  of  a  town,  is 
very  common  in  Icelandic.  The  fact  is  important,  because  it  shows 
that  the  derivation  of  the  ending  -urn  in  the  names  of  towns  from  Ger. 
heim  is,  in  many  cases,  erroneous.  See  First  Series,  Lecture  II.  p.  44, 
and  Appendix,  4.  In  the  sagas,  mt-Hce'^um  is  generally  called 
Hei^abser  or  HeiSabyr,  in  which  forms  the  name  often  occurs  in 
Knytlinga-Saga.  In  the  present  instance,  the  form  is  no  doubt  that 
which  the  Norwegian  Ohther  gave  it,  but  this  construction,  though 
rare,  appears  not  to  be  unprecedented  in  Anglo-Saxon,  at  least  in  the 
singular.  Kemble,  Cod.  Dip.  My.  Sax.  No.  353,  as  quoted  for  another 
purpose  in  Ilaupt's  Zeitschrift,  XII.  282.,  gives  this  phrase  from  a  grant 
of  Athelstan  to  Wulfgar  :  '  quandam  telluris  particulam  in  loco  quem 
solicole  at  Hamme  vocitant;'  —  hyr^,  3.  p.  indie,  pres.  sing,  from 
hyran,  to  hear,  to  obey,  and  hence,  like  the  German  g  eh  or  en,  to 
belong. 

I  have  introduced  a  French  translation  made  by  a  friend  from 
Thorpe's  version,  for  the  purpose  of  a  comparative  view  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  English,  and  the  French  periodic  construction.  I  think  the 
latter  might,  without  violence  to  the  idiom  of  the  language,  have  been 
made  to  show  a  closer  conformity  to  Thorpe's  syntax,  but,  though  it 
was  not  executed  with  any  such  purpose,  it  will  be  apparent  from  a 
comparison  of  the  different  texts  that  English  syntax  corresponds  almost 
as  nearly  with  French  as  with  Gothic  precedent,  I  believe  port  and 
mil  are  the  only  words  of  Latin  extraction  used  by  Alfred  in  these 
extracts.  Thorpe's  translation,  which  studiously  avoids  non-Saxon 
words,  has  thirteen  derived  from  French  and  Latin.  About  ten  of  the 
words  employed  by  Alfred  are  now  obsolete. 


Lncr.  III.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  133 


PREFACE  TO  ALFRED'S   TRANSLATION  OF  BOETHIUS. 

From  Cardale's  edition,  London,    1829 ;   with  (2)  a  literal  version  ; 
and  (3)  Cardale's  translation. 

1.  Aelfred      Kuning     \va2s      wealhstod  Sisse  bee       and 

2.  Alfred,         king,        was      translator      (of-)     this      book      and 

3.  Alfred,  king,       was      translator  of  this         book      and 

1.  hie     of   bee  Ledene    on    Englisc   wende  swa  hio  nu    is  gedon. 

2.  it    from  book-leden  into  English  turned    as     it  now  is    done. 

3.  turned   it  from  book-latin  into  English    as     it  now  is    done. 

1.  hwilum      he  sette   word   be  worde.     hwilum         andgit     of 

2.  Whiles       he    set    word    by   word,        whiles  sense      for 

3.  Sometimes    he     set    word    by    word,    sometimes    meaning    of 

1.  andgite.     swa  swa  he  hit   pa     sweotolost     and    andgitfullicost 

2.  sense,       just    as   he   it    the  most-clearly  and      intelligibly 

3.  meaning,  as   he  the  most  plainly  and    most  clearly 

1 .  gereccan  mihte.  for  faem    mistlicum  and  manigfealdum  weoruld 

2.  speak    might,  for    the    distracting  and       manifold  world 

3.  could  render  it,    for    the      various     and       manifold        worldly 

1.  bisgum        ]>e  hine     oft    segper  ge  on   mode  ge  on    lichoman 

2.  business    which  him   oft     both        in      mind  and  in       body 

3.  occupations      which    often  busied  him  both  in  mind  and  in  body. 

1.  bisgodan.      Da       bisgu         us  sint  swife  earfoj)  rime 

2.  busied.      The  businesses    us  are    very     hard        (to)  count 

3.  The  occupations  are  to  us  very  difficult  to  be  numbered 

1.  ))e        on    his    dagum      on         ))a       ricu     becomon      ]>e       he 

2.  which    in    his      days     upon    those    realms      came       that      he 

3.  which    in    his      days     came    upon    the    kingdoms     which   he 

1.  imderfangen  heefde,     and  ])eah  ]7a     he      ]:»as      boc 

2.  undertaken     had,      and  yet  when   he      this    book 

3.  had    undertaken,      and    nevertheless    when    he    had    learned 

1.  h^fde     geleornode,     and       of      La^dene      to      Engliscum 

2.  had         learned,        and     from      Latin      into        English 

3.  this     book,  and     turned     it     from     Latin     into     the 


134  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTEATIONS  Lect.  III. 

1.  spelle   gewende.     fa    geworhte    he    hi        efler        to     leo|)e. 

2.  speech     turned,     then  wrought     he     it   afterwards    to    (a)  lay, 

3.  English  language,      he    afterwards    composed    it        in     verse, 

1.  swa  swa  heo  nu    gedon  is,      and       nu        bit      and  for  Godes 

2.  so      as     it    now    done    is;     and      now     prays  and  for  God's 

3.  as  it   now    is  done.     And  he  now  prays  and  for  God's 

1.  naman  healsa]?       selcne        J)ara  6e    J^as   hoc      rsedan  lyste. 

2.  name      begs  each    (of-)  them   that  this  book  (to)  read  lists, 

3.  name  implores  every  one  of  those  whom  it  lists  to  read  this  book, 

1.  ^      he    for    hine     gebidde     and    him     ne      wite       gif    he 

2.  tliat    he    for     him         pray        and    him    not    blame      if      he 

3.  that    he  would  pray  for  him      and    not     blame  him       if      he 

1.  hit  rihtlicor        ongite      ponne  he   mihte.    forjiasmde  selc     mon 

2.  it  rightlier   understand  than     he  might;    for  that    each    man 

3.  more  rightly  understand  it  than  he    could.         For       every  man 

1.  sceal  be         his  andgites  m^eSe  and 

2.  should  by         his         understanding's         measure  and 

3.  must    according    to   the    measure    of    his  understanding    and 

1.  be  his  ^mettan  sprecan  Saet       he  spree]),     and 

2.  by  his     leisure,    speak   that        he  speaketh,  and 

3.  according  to  his    leisure,    sp§ak   that  which  he     speaks,     and 

1.  don     f        ^       he    de]?. 

2.  do    that    that     he  doeth. 

3.  do    that  which  he   does.  ' 

Notes,  wealhstod,  from  wealh,  a  foreigner^  stranger,  Welshman. 
stodiQ  apparently  allied  to  standan,  to  stand,  but  its  force  in  this  com- 
pound is  not  clear.  We alhstod  is  wholly  obsolete ;  —  bec-ledene, 
led  en  is  used  for  Latin  and  for  language.  See  First  Series,  Appendix, 
1.     Chaucer  uses  leden,  in  this  latter  sense,  in  the  Squieres  Tale : 

*  Eight  in  hire  haukes  leden  thus  she  sayde. 

The  phrase  hec-leden  belongs  to  a  period  when  Anglo-Saxon  was  so 
rarely,  and  Latin  so  universally  employed  for  literary  purposes,  that  the 
latter  was  emphatically  the  language  of  books; — ivende  from  wen  dan, 
to  turn,  obsolete  in  this  sense,  but  surviving  probably  in  wend,  to  go, 
and  went,  associate  imp.  of  go; — hwilum,  dative  pi.  from  hivil,  hwile, 


Lect.  III.  NOTES   AND    ILLUSTRATIONS  135 

a  while,  time,  space; — andgit,  andgyt,  or  andget,  mind,  intelligence, 
meaning,  physical  sense,  wholly  obsolete  with  its  many  derivatives  and 
compounds.  The  moral  and  intellectual  nomenclature  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  had  become  almost  wholly  lost  before  Chaucer's  time,  as  will  be 
shown  in  Lecture  VIII.  The  substitution  of  Komance  words  for  Gothic, 
or  Anglo-Saxon,  extended  also  very  far  in  the  vocabulary  of  common 
material  life.  Of  the  English  names  of  the  five  senses,  two,  taste  and 
touch,  are  Romance.  See  also  First  Series,  Lecture  VI.  p.  139.  Bos- 
worth,  under  andget,  quotes  an  Anglo-Saxon  writer  as  saying:  fa 
fif  andgita  J^ajs  lichoman  synd.  gesiht,  hlyst,  sprcec,  sta^ng  or 
stenc,  and  hrcepung;  the  five  senses  of  the  body  are  sight,  hearing, 
(hlyst,  Engl,  listen),  speech,  smell,  and  touch.  Bosworth  does  not  ap- 
pear to  suspect  any  error  in  this  passage,  but  it  is  possible  that  spj^a^c, 
speech,  is  a  misreading  for  smcBC,  taste,  still  extant  in  smack.  But  this 
is  by  no  means  certain.  In  the  Ancren  Riwle,  about  a.d.  1200,  it  is  said: 
]?e  heorte  wardeins  beo3  j)e  vif  wittes — sihSe  &  herunge,  spekunge  and 
smellunge,  &  eueriches  limes  uelunge ;  and  wc  wulleS  speken  of  alle, 
uor  hwo  se  wit  feos  wel,  he  deS  Salomones  heste.  The  wardens  of  the 
heart  are  the  five  senses :  sight  and  hearing,  speaking  and  smell,  and 
every  limb's  feeling,  and  we  will  speak  of  them  all ;  for  whosoever  keeps 
these  well,  he  doeth^  Solomon's  hest.  Another  manuscript  reads  smec- 
chinge  for  spekunge,  and  the  learned  editor  of  the  Camden  Society's 
edition  of  the  Ancren  Eiwle  thinks  that,  in  the  copy  he  printed  from, 
spekunge  is  an  error  for  smekunge.  But  the  author  of  the  Ancren 
Riwle,  in  discussing  the  temptations  to  Avhich  the  indulgence  of  the 
senses  exposes  us,  dilates  first  upon  sight,  then  upon  speech,  thus  pre- 
facing his  remarks  on  this  subject :  Spellunge  &  smecchunge  beo5  ine 
muSe  bo'Se,  ase  sihSe  is  iSen  f  eien  :  auh  we  schulen  leten  smecchunge 
vort  til  we  speken  of  ower  mete.  Talking  and  taste  are  both  in  the 
mouth,  as  the  sight  is  in  the  eyes :  hut  we  shall  omit  taste  until  ive  speak 
of  your  meat.  He  then  goes  on  to  treat  of  hearing,  then  of  sight,  speech 
and  hearing,  jointly,  concluding  this  section  by  saying :  J^is  beoS  nu  J)e 
preo  wittes  ^  ich  habben  ispeken  of  Speke  we  nu  schortliche  of  ])e  two 
oSre :  j)auh  nis  nout  spellunge  ]je  muSes  wit,  ase  smecchunge,  pauh  heo 
beon  beo3e  ine  muSe.  These  are  noiv  the  three  senses  that  I  have  spoken 
of.     Speak  we  now  shortly  of  the  other  two ;  though  talking  is  not  a 

*  Boeth.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  false  learning  of  grammarians  has  re- 
jected the  important  distinction  between  doth,  auxiliary,  and  docth,  independent. 

t  Note  the  curious  coalescences,  ine  for  in  the,  sing.;  i<Sen  for  in  the,  (j^aem) 
plur. 


136  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  Lect.  IIT. 

sense  of  the  mouth- as  tasting  is,  though  theij  are  both  in  the  mouth.  He 
then  proceeds  to  treat  of  the  smell  and  of  the  touch  ot  feeling,  but  makes 
no  mention  of  the  taste,  though  in  the  Vlllth  and  concluding  part,  he 
gives  rules  of  abstinence.  In  the  second  paragraph  of  this  part  he  says: 
Of  sih5e  and  of  speche,  and  of  the  o5re  wittes  is  inouh  i-seid ;  Of  sight, 
and  of  speech,  and  of  the  other  senses  enough  has  been  said.  Notwith- 
standing the  writer's  protest,  then,  that  '  talking  is  not  a  sense  of  the 
mouth  as  tasting  is,*  yet  he  habitually  treated  speech  as  a  sense.  Of 
the  fiv-e  names  of  the  senses  enumerated  in  the  passage  cited  by  Bos- 
worth  under  and  get,  gesiht,  sight  is  the  only  one  now  used  to  indi- 
cate a  sense,  and  hrcepung,  from  hrcepan,  to  touch,  with  all  its  cog- 
nates, is  lost  altogether. 

There  was  a  strange  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  names  of  the  senses 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Chaucer's  employment  oi  feel  for  smell  is  an 
instance : 

I  was  so  nigh,  I  might  fele 

Of  the  bothum  the  swete  odour. 

liomaunt  of  the  Eose,  v.  1844. 

Whan  I  so  nigh  me  might /e^e 
Of  the  bothum  the  swete  odour. 

R.  JR.  Y.  3012. 

In  the  original,  the  verb  is  s^enttr,  Lat.  s entire,  to  perceive;  sentir 
signifies  to  smell  in  modern  French  also; — sweotolost,  adverb  superl. 
from  sweotol,  plain,  clear,  which  is  obsolete,  with  all  its  progeny; 
gereccan,  recan,  to  speak,  extant  only  in  reckon.  Between  re  can, 
to  speak,  and  reckon,  to  count,  there  is  the  same  analogy  as  between  the 
two  corresponding  senses  of  the  verb  to  tell ;  — fo  r  has  here  nearly  the 
meaning  of  m  spite  of,  notwithstanding; — mistlicum,  dat.  pi.  from 
mistlic  or  mislic,  is  not  allied  to  mix,  but  is  a  compound  from  mis 
and  lie,  mis-like,  unlike,  discordant;  —  lichoman,  body,  obsolete  ex- 
cept in  the  un-English  hjke-  or  like-ivake,  corpse-watch;  —  earfolp, 
obsolete;  —  rime,  number,  not  the  Grajco-Latin  rhythmus,  is  the 
time  source  of  our  rhyme.  The  resemblance  between  rime  and  Greek 
upLOfioQ  in  both  form  and  meaning  deserves  notice; — ricu,  realm,  Ger. 
Keicli,  allied  to  rich,  but  otherwise  obsolete;  —  geworhte  x  x  to 
leo]>e,  turned  into  a  lay  or  verse.  This  may,  and  probably  does  refer 
to  the  metrical,  or  rather  rhythmical  portions  of  Boethius,  which  Alfred 
translated  into  both  prose  and  verse ;  but  some  have  supposed  that  the 
whole  version  is  to  be  considered  as  a  species  of  measured  composition. 


Lect.  III.  NOTES   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  137 

It  would  be  hard,  however,  to  liken  it  to  anything  we  call  verse,  unless 
it  be  Richter's  Streckvers; — healsa}^,  infin.  halsian,  from  hals, 
the  neck,  to  implore,  to  persuade  hj  embracing.  The  root  and  all  its  de- 
rivatives are  now  obsolete  in  English; — wite,  blame,  allied  to  twit;  — 
iua^'Se,  measure,  extant  in  verb,  to  mete;  —  aimettan,  leisure,  allied  to 
empty.  The  Latin  vacuus,  the  equivalent  of  empty,  was  used  in  the 
sense  of  at  leisure. 

In  this  preface,  Alfred  uses  no  Latin  word.  Cardale's  translation 
has  seventeen,  of  Latin  and  French  derivation.  Many  of  Alfred's  most 
important  words,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  above  notes,  have  entirely  dis- 
appeared from  the  English  vocabulary. 


LECTUEE  lY. 


SEMI-SAXON   LITEKATURE. 


That  which  is  sown  is  not  quickened  except  it  die.  The 
decay  of  an  old  literature  is  a  necessary  condition  precedent  for 
the  origination  of  a  new  mode  of  intellectual  life,  in  any  people 
which  has  a  prose  and  a  poetry  of  its  own.  Had  not  the  speech 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  perished,  and  with  it  the  forms  of  literary 
effort  which  employed  it  as  a  medium,  the  broader-spreading 
and  more  generous  vine,  which  now  refreshes  the  whole  earth, 
had  never  sprung  from  the  regenerated  root  of  that  old  stock. 

The  Norman  Conquest  gave  the  finishing  stroke  to  the  effete 
commonwealth  of  which  I  spoke  in  a  former  lecture,  and  through 
the  intellectual  winter  and  spring-time  of  three  centuries,  which 
followed  that  event,  the  germ  of  a  new  and  nobler  nationality 
lay  buried  in  the  soil,  undergoing  the  slow  and  almost  imper- 
ceptible changes  that  were  gradually  fitting  it  for  a  vigorous 
and  prolific  growth. 

During  this  period,  the  Saxon,  the  Norman,  the  Danish 
settler  and  the  few  remains  of  the  Celt  were  slowly  melting  and 
coalescing  into  a  harmonized  whole,  if  not  into  a  homogeneous 
mass,  and  thus  a  new  nation,  a  new  character,  and  a  new  social 
and  political  influence  in  the  world  of  letters,  of  art  and  of  arms, 
were  gradually  developed. 

The  immediate  moral  and  intellectual  results  of  the  Conquest 
were  fully  realized,  and  the  character  of  English  intellect,  taste 
and  temper,  so  far  at  least  as  foreign  action  was  concerned,  was 
completely  formed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III. —  the  era  of 
Langlande,  and  Chaucer,  and  Grower,  and  Wycliffe.     The  new 


Lect.  IV.  CONTINENTAL   INFLUENCE  139 

ingredients  had  been  introduced  and  incorporated,  and  a  unity 
of  feeling  and  spirit  established,  before  those  great  writers  com- 
menced their  labours.  In  short,  English  nationality  had  become 
full-grown,  and  all  that  it  remained  for  the  Continent  to  do,  in 
its  capacity  of  an  informing  influence,  was  to  furnish  new  ad- 
ditions to  the  stock  of  words  at  the  command  of  the  English 
writer,  and  models  of  literary  form  to  serve  as  leading-strings 
for  the  first  essays  of  an  incipient  literature. 

In  the  history  of  Anglo-Norman  England,  we  find  compara- 
tively few  traces  of  that  hostility  of  race  which  is  so  common 
between  a  conquered  and  a  conquering  people,  and  I  think  that 
recent  English  writers  have  exaggerated  the  reciprocal  dislike 
and  repugnance  of  the  Norman  and  the  Anglo-Saxon.  A  jealousy, 
indeed,  existed — for  the  causes  of  it  lie  too  deep  in  human 
nature  to  be  eradicated — and  there  are  not  wanting  evidences 
of  its  occasional  manifestation ;  but  the  civil  and  social  discords 
seem  generally  results  of  the  conflicting  interests  and  sympathies 
of  ranks  and  classes,  rather  than  of  a  settled  animosity  between 
the  home-born  and  the  comeling. 

Down  to  the  time  of  Edward  III.  the  two  languages,  native 
and  stranger,  if  not  the  two  peoples,  existed  side  by  side,  each 
forming  a  separate  current  in  the  common  channel.  Their 
intermingling  was  very  gradual.  Norman-French,  which  was 
the  language  of  the  schools,  disturbed  the  inflections  and  the 
articulation  of  English,  while  English  contributed  no  inconsider- 
able number  of  words  to  the  vocabulary  of  Norman-French, 
modified  its  grammar  in  some  particulars*,  and  thus  created  the 
dialect  known  as  Anglo-Norman,  which  still  survives  in  import- 
ant literary  remains,  but  is  most  familiarly  known  as,  for  a  long- 
period,  the  forensic  and  judicial  language  of  England. 

The  Normans  found  in  England  as  many  objects  and  insti- 
tutions  new  to   themselves   as   they  brought  with  them  and 


■*  For  instance,  it  overthrew  the  Norman-French  law  of  the  formation  of  the 
phiral  in  nouns. 


140  ENGLISH  OF  THIRTEENTH   CENTURY  Lect.  IV. 

imposed  upon  the  English  people.  Hence,  so  long  as  the  two 
dialects  co-existed  as  independent  speeches,  the  Norman,  in  its 
various  applications  and  uses,  borrowed  as  much  as  it  gave;  and 
accordingly,  down  at  least  to  the  accession  of  Edward  III.  we 
find  in  the  French  used  in  England,  including  the  nomenclature 
of  law  and  government,  quite  as  large  a  proportion  of  Saxon 
words  as  contemporaneous  English  had  borrowed  from  the 
Norman. 

The  entire  English  vocabulary  of  the  thirteenth  century,  as 
far  as  it  is  known  to  us  by  its  printed  literature,  consists,  accord- 
ing to  Coleridge's  Grlossarial  Index,  of  about  eight  thousand 
words.  Of  these,  only  about  one  thousand,  or  between  twelve 
and  thirteen  per  cent.,  are  of  Latin  and  Eomance  derivation.  In 
the  actual  usage  of  any  single  author,  such  words  do  not  exceed 
four  or  five  per  cent.,  and  of  this  small  proportion,  some  were 
probably  taken  directly  from  Latin  moral  and  theological  lite- 
rature, though  in  form  they  may  have  been  accommodated  to 
Norman  modes  of  derivation.  The  lanofuao-e  thus  far  was  sub- 
stantially  Anglo-Saxon,  but  modified  in  its  periodic  structure, 
and  stripped  of  a  certain  number  of  inflections,  the  loss  of  which 
was  compensated  by  newly  developed  auxiliaries,  and  by  a  more 
liberal  use  of  particles  and  determinatives. 

Philologists  have  found  it  impossible  to  fix,  on  linguistic 
grounds,  a  period  when  Anglo-Saxon  can  be  said  to  have  ceased 
and  English  to  have  begun ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
some  are  disposed  to  deny  that  any  such  metamorphosis  ever 
took  place,  and  to  maintain  the  identity  of  the  old  speech  and 
the  new.  The  change  from  the  one  to  the  other  was  so  gradual, 
that  if  we  take  any  quarter  or  even  half  of  a  century,  it  is  not 
easy  to  point  out  any  marked  characteristic  difference  between 
the  general  language  of  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  it,  though 
particular  manuscripts  of  the  same  work,  differing  not  very 
much  in  date,  sometimes  exhibit  dialects  in  very  different  states 
of  resolution  and  reconstruction.  The  difficulty  of  discriminating 
the  successive  phases  of  the  language  by  a  chronological  arrange- 


Lect.  IV.  STANDARD   OF   LANGUAGE  141 

ment  is  much  increased  by  the  fact,  that  although  there  are 
numerous  written  monuments  from  every  age  of  English  history, 
yet  there  is,  in  the  series  of  printed  vernacular  writings,  almost 
a  hiatus,  which  extends  through  a  large  part  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  or  in  other  words  through  one  of  the  most  important 
eras  of  English  philological  revolution.  Besides  this,  we  are  in 
many  cases  wholly  unable  to  distinguish  with  certainty,  or  even 
with  reasonable  probability,  dialectic  or  individual  peculiarities 
from  the  landmarks  of  general  change  and  progress ;  for  not- 
withstanding the  confidence  with  which  critics  assign  particular 
writings  to  particular  localities,  upon  internal  evidence  alone, 
we  really  know  very  little  on  the  subject.  In  fact,  in  the  pre- 
sent linguistic  school,  British  as  well  as  Continental,  hastily 
generalized  conclusions  and  positive  assertion  are  so  often  sub- 
stituted for  sufficient  documentary  proof,  that  he,  who  studies 
the  early  philology  of  modern  Europe  only  so  far  as  it  is  ex- 
hibited in  grammars  and  dictionaries,  and  speculative  essays,  is 
very  frequent  accumulating  unsubstantial  theories,  instead  of 
acquiring  definite  truths  which  can  be  shown  to  have  ever  had 
a  real  existence. 

In  ages,  when  a  native  literature  has  not  yet  been  created,  or 
the  structural  forms  of  language  established  by  the  authorita- 
tive example  of  great  and  generally  circulated  works  of  genius, 
there  can  be  no  standard  of  diction  or  of  grammar.  Most  writers 
will  be  persons  whose  intellectual  training  has  been  acquired 
through  older  literatures  and  foreign  tongues.  Their  first  efforts 
will  incline  to  be  imitative,  and  they  will  follow  alien  models 
not  only  in  theme  and  treatment,  but  even  in  grammatical  com- 
position. Every  author  will  aim  to  be  a  philological  reformer, 
and  will  adopt  such  system  of  orthography  and  of  syntactical 
form  and  arrangement  as  accidental  circumstances,  or  his  own 
special  tastes  and  habits  of  study,  may  have  suggested  to  him. 
Hence  no  safe  conclusions  as  to  the  common  dialect  of  an  age 
or  country,  at  a  period  of  linguistic  transition,  can  be  drawn 
from  a  single  example,  or  from  the  consistent  usage  of  a  single 


■t: 


'•«*\ 
•^•n 


142  PERIODS   IN   ENGLISH  Lect.  IV 

writer.  No  historically  probable  theory  of  progress  and  change 
can  explain  the  remarkable  grammatical  differences  between 
the  older  and  the  not  much  later  text  of  Layamon,  or  between 
either  of  these  and  the  nearly  contemporaneous  work  of  Ormin, 
because  the  intervening  period  is  entirely  too  short  for  such 
revolutions  to  have  been  accomplished.  And  in  like  manner, 
even  after  the  language  had  assumed  the  general  character 
which  now  mark's  it,  we  find  between  the  two  texts  of  the  Wy- 
cliffite  translations  of  the  Bible,  or  rather  between  Hereford's 
and  Wycliffe's  translation  and  the  first  recension  of  it,  gram- 
matical differences,  which  it  would  be  extravagant  to  ascribe  to 
a  general  change  in  English  syntax  during  the  very  few  years 
that  are  supposed  to  have  elapsed  between  the  execution  of  the 
first  version  and  the  revision  of  it  by  Purvey. 

Although  the  process  of  transformation  from  Anglo-Saxon  to 
English  was  too  gradual  and  too  obscure  to  admit  of  precise 
chronological  determination,  yet  subsequent  epochs  of  change 
in  our  vernacular,  after  it  had  once  dropped  the  formal,  or,  to 
spedk  more  accurately,  the  inflectional  peculiarities  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  grammar,  are  somewhat  more  distinctly  marked,  and  it  is 
practicable  to  indicate  its  successive  periods  by  tolerably  well 
characterised  and  easily  recognisable  tokens,  though,  as  in  the 
history  of  other  languages,  the  dates  assumed  as  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  those  epochs  are  somewhat  arbitrary.  It  is  not, 
however,  that  the  later  growth  of  English  has  actually  been 
more  per  saltum  than  at  earlier  periods,  but  because,  from  the 
increasing  uniformity  of  the  written  dialect  —  a  natural  result 
of  the  general  circulation  of  the  works  of  distinguished  authors, 
and  the  consequent  universal  prevalence  of  the  forms  which 
they  had  consecrated — and  also  from  the  much  greater  number 
of  literary  monuments  which  are  historically  known  to  have 
been  produced  in  different  parts  of  the  island,  we  can  trace  the 
history  of  the  language,  and  follow  all  its  movements  with  far 
greater  facility  than  through  periods  when  contemporaneous 


Lect.  IV.  PERIODS   IN   ENGLISH 


writers  differed  more  widely  and  the  philological  memorials  are 
fewer. 

The  London  Philological  Society,  in  its  'Proposal  for  the 
publication  of  a  New  English  Dictionary,'  divides  English,  for 
philological  purposes,  into  three  periods  :  the  first,  from  its  rise, 
about  1250,  to  the  Eeformation,  of  which  the  first  printed 
English  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  in  1526,  may  be 
taken  as  the  earliest  monument ;  the  second,  from  the  Eeform- 
ation to  and  including  the  time  of  Milton,  or  from  1526  to 
1674,  the  date  of  Milton's  death ;  and  the  third,  from  Milton 
to  our  own  day. 

These  periods,  I  suppose,  are  fixed  for  lexicographical  con- 
venience in  the  collection  of  authorities,  as  I  do  not  discover 
any  other  sufficient  ground  for  the  division.  Neither  is  Craik's 
distribution  altogether  satisfactory.  The  first,  or  Early  English 
period  of  that  author  extends  from  1250  to  1350;  his  second, 
or  Middle  English,  from  the  latter  date  to  1530  ;  and  his  third, 
or  Modern  English,  from  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
to  the  present  day.*  This,  however,  seems  an  objectionable 
division  as  to  the  second  period,  because  it  embraces,  in  one 
group,  writers  so  unlike  in  literary  and  philological  character 
as  Langlande  and  Wyatt,  Wycliffe  and  Sir  Thomas  More ;  and 
as  to  the  last,  because  it  overlooks  the  philological  revolution 
due  to  the  introduction  of  printing,  the  more  general  diffusion 
of  classical  literature,  and  the  first  impulse  of  the  Eeformation, 
and  classes  together  writers  who  have  so  little  in  common  as 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  Walter  Scott.  I  attach  very  little  im- 
portance to  these  arbitrary  divisions  of  the  annals  of  our  lan- 
guage and  literature,  but  having  on  a  former  occasion  adopted 
an  arrangement  not  coinciding  with  either  of  these  systems,  I 
shall,  both  for  the  sake  of  uniformity,  and  because  I  have  found 
it  at  once  convenient  and  suited  to  my  view^s  of  English  philo- 
logical history,  substantially  adhere  to  it  in  this  course.f     The 

*  Outlines  of  the  History  of  the  English  Language. 
t  See  First  Series,  Lecture  L,  p.  48. 


144  PEEIODS   IN   ENGLISH  Lect.  IV. 

first  period  I  would,  with  Craik,  consider  as  extending  from 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  to  the  middle  of  the  four- 
teenth century;  the  second  would  terminate  with  the  third 
quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  the  third  would  embrace  all 
subsequent  phases  of  both  the  language  and  the  literature 
down  to  the  time  of  Milton,  with  whom  the  second  period  of 
the  Philological  Society  concludes.  The  question  of  subsequent 
division  or  subdivision  is  at  present  unimportant,  because,  for 
reasons  already  given,  I  do  not  propose  to  carry  down  my 
sketches  later  than  to  the  age  of  Shakspeare,  when  I  consider  the 
language  as  having  reached  what  in  the  geography  of  great 
rivers  is  called  the  lower  course*,  and  as  having  become  a  flow- 
ing sea  capable  of  bearing  to  the  ocean  of  time  the  mightiest 
argosies,  a  mirror  clear  enough  to  reflect  the  changeful  hues  of 
every  sky,  and  give  body  and  outline  to  the  grandest  forms 
which  the  human  imagination  has  ever  conceived. 

The  literature  of  England,  were  it  to  be  considered  without 
reference  to  the  revolutions  of  its  vehicle,  might  admit  and  per- 
haps require  a  division  into  very  different  eras.  Some  of  these 
would  commence  with  prominent  and  well-marked  epochs  of 
sudden  transition,  while  in  others,  the  periods  are  separated  by 
an  age  of  apparent  intellectual  inactivity,  during  which  the 
monuments  are  too  few  and  too  insignificant  to  enable  us  easily 
to  trace  the  course  of  those  hidden  influences,  which  were  secretly 
and  silently  training  and  costuming  the  dramatis  personce  for 
a  new  and  more  triumphant  entry  upon  the  stage  of  literature. 

But  we  propose  to  consider  the  language  and  its  literary  pro- 
ductivity as  co-ordinate  powers,  reciprocally  stimulating  and  in- 
tensifying each  other,  and  hence,  so  far  as  their  history  is  not 
concurrent,  we  must  distinguish  their  respective  chronological 


*  In  German,  Unterlauf,  or  with  some  writers,  Strom,  is  that  lowest  and 
usually  navigable  part  of  the  course  of  a  river,  where  its  motion  is  due  less  to  the 
inclination  of  its  bed  than  to  the  momentum  acquired  by  previous  rapidity  of  flow, 
and  to  the  hydrostatic  pressiire  of  the  swifter  currents  from  higher  parts  of  its 
valley. 


Lect.  IV.  ORIGIN   OP  NATIONAL  LITERATURE  145 

eras.  I  have  already  stated  that  the  English  language  attained 
to  a  recognizable  existence  as  a  distinct  individuality  about  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  "We  must  now  fix  a  period 
which  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  birth-day  of  English  literature. 

When  then  can  England  be  said  to  have  first  possessed  a  na- 
tive and  peculiar  literature  ?  The  mere  existence  of  numerous 
manuscripts,  in  the  popular  dialect,  belonging  to  any  given  pe- 
riod, does  not  prove  the  existence  of  a  national  literature  at  that 
epoch.  A  national  literature  commences  only  when  the  genius 
of  the  people  expresses  itself,  through  native  authors,  upon  to- 
pics of  permanent  interest,  in  the  grammatical  and  rhetorical 
forms  best  suited  to  the  essential  character  of  the  vernacular, 
and  of  those  who  speak  it.  It  is  under  such  circumstances  only 
that  prose  or  poetry  exerts  a  visible  influence  upon  the  speech, 
the  tastes  or  the  opinions  of  a  nation,  only  by  concurrent  action 
and  re-action  that  literature  and  associate  life  begin  to  stimulate 
and  modify  each  other.  In  order  that  such  effects  may  be  pro- 
duced in  a  mixed  people,  the  races  which  enter  into  the  compo- 
sition of  the  nation,  and  the  dialects  of  those  races,  must  have, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  been  harmonized  and  melted  into  one, 
and  the  people  and  the  speech,  though  ethnologically  and  histo- 
rically derived  from  different  and  unallied  sources,  must  have 
become  so  far  amalgamated  as  to  excite  a  feeling  of  conscious 
individuality  of  nature  and  community  of  interest  in  the  popu- 
lation, and  of  oneness  of  substance  and  structure  in  the  tongue. 

In  a  composite  nation,  such  a  union  of  races  and  of  tongues 
strange  to  each  other,  such  a  neutralization  and,  finally,  assimi- 
lation of  antagonist  elements,  can  only  be  the  effect  of  a  gradual 
interfusion  and  a  long  commingling,  or  of  some  vis  ah  extra 
which  forces  the  reciprocally  repellent  particles  into  that  near 
contiguity  when,  as  in  the  case  of  magnetic  bodies,  repulsion 
ceases  and  attraction  begins. 

The  English  political  and  other  occasional  ballads  and  songs 
of  the  thirteenth,  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  and  probably 
earlier  centuries,  do  not  constitute  a  literature,  nor  would  they 

L 


146  FUSION   OP   NATIONS   AND   OF   DIALECTS  Lect.  IV. 

do  SO,  were  they  ten  times  more  numerous,  because  neither  the 
public  to  which  they  were  addressed,  nor  the  speech  in  which 
they  were  penned,  yet  possessed  any  oneness  of  spirit  or  of 
dialectic  form,  and  because  they  were  founded  on  events  too 
circumscribed  in  their  action,  and  on  interests  too  temporary  in 
their  nature,  to  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  more  than  a  single 
class  or  province  or  generation. 

These  compositions  were  sometimes  in  Latin,  sometimes  in 
Norman-French,  and  sometimes  in  dialects  of  Saxon-English, 
which  had  lost  all  the  power  of  poetic  expression  that  character- 
ized the  ancient  Anglican  tongue,  without  having  yet  acquired 
anything  of  the  graces  of  diction  and  adaptation  to  versified 
composition  already  developed  in  the  neighbouring  Eomance 
languages ;  and  lastly,  they  were  sometimes  macaronic.  They 
cannot,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  the  expression  of  anything 
which  deserves  to  be  called  the  national  mind,  though,  indeed, 
we  trace  in  them,  here  and  there,  the  germs  which  were  soon  to 
be  quickened  to  a  strong  and  genial  growth. 

The  welding  heat,  which  finally  brought  the  constituents  of 
English  nationality  into  a  consistent  and  coherent  mass,  was 
generated  by  the  Continental  wars  of  Edward  III.  The  con- 
nection between  those  constituents  had  been  hitherto  a  political 
aggregation,  not  a  social  union ;  they  had  formed  a  group  of 
provinces  and  of  races,  not  an  entire  and  organized  common- 
wealth. Up  to  this  period,  the  Latin  as  the  official  language  of 
the  clergy,  the  Norman-French  as  that  of  the  court,  the  nobility, 
and  the  multitude  of  associates,  retainers,  dependents,  and  trades- 
men whom  the  Norman  Conquest  had  brought  over  to  the 
island,  and  the  native  English  as  the  speech  of  the  people  of 
Saxon  descent,  had  co-existed  without  much  clashing  interfer- 
ence, and  without  any  powerfully  active  influence  upon  each 
other ;  and  those  who  habitually  spoke  them,  though  apparently 
not  violently  hostile  races,  were,  nevertheless,  in  their  associa- 
tions and  their  interests,  almost  as  distinct  and  unrelated  as  the 
languages  themselves. 


Lect.  IV.  ORIGIN   OF  LITERATURE  147 

There  was,  then,  neither  a  national  speech  nor  a  national 
spirit,  and  of  course  there  was  and  could  be  no  national  litera- 
ture, until  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  True,  the 
Ormulum,  and  the  chronicles  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  and 
Robert  of  Brunne,  voluminous  works  to  be  noticed  hereafter, 
as  well  as  many  minor  productions  in  the  native  language, 
existed  earlier;  but  they  were  in  no  sense  organic  products  of 
English  genius,  or  stamped  with  any  of  the  peculiarities  which 
we  now  recognise  as  characteristic  of  the  literature  of  England. 
We  have  no  proof  that  any  of  these  writings  exerted  much  general 
influence  in  the  formation  of  the  English  character  or  the 
English  tongue,  but  they  are  important  as  evidences  of  the  nature 
and  amount  of  changes  which  political,  social,  and  commercial 
causes,  rather  than  higher  intellectual  impulses,  had  produced 
in  the  language  and  the  people. 

In  one  aspect,  then,  the  general  subject  of  our  course  pro- 
perly begins  with  the  age  of  Langlande  and  Wycliffe  and  Gower 
and  Chaucer ;  but  we  propose  to  make  a  special  study  of  the 
language,  not  merely  as  a  passive  medium  of  literary  effort, 
but  as  an  informing  element  in  the  character  of  that  effort ;  and 
hence  we  must  preface  our  more  formal  literary  discussions 
with  something  more  than  a  hasty  glance  at  an  era  of  blind 
and  obscure  influences  —  a  stage  of  that  organic,  involuntary, 
and,  so  to  speak,  vegetal  action  by  which  the  materials  of  our 
maternal  tongue  were  assimilated,  and  its  members  fashioned, 
just  as  in  animal  physiology  the  powers  of  nature  form  the 
body  and  its  organs  before  the  breath  of  conscious  life  is  breathed 
into  them. 

In  investigating  the  origin  of  a  literature  and  the  relations 
between  it  and  the  tongue  which  is  its  vehicle,  it  is  a  matter  of 
much  interest  to  ascertain  the  causes  which  have  determined 
the  character  of  the  language  in  its  earliest  individualised  form ; 
and  we  can,  not  unfrequently,  detect  the  more  general  influences 
and  their  mode  of  operation,  as  certainly  in  the  speech  itself  as  in 
historical  monuments.     When,  for  example,  we  find,  in  follow- 

L  2 


148  CHARACTER   OF  EARLY   ENGLISH  Lect.  IV. 

ing  the  history  of  a  given  tongue,  an  infusion  of  new  words  or 
idioms  of  a  particular  linguistic  character,  we  can  generally 
recognize  the  source  from  which  they  proceeded,  with  little 
danger  of  mistake ;  and  the  class  of  words  and  combinations 
so  borrowed  will  often  furnish  very  satisfactory  evidence  as  to 
the  historical  or  ethnological  character  of  the  influences  which 
have  been  operative  in  their  introduction.  If,  for  example,  the 
vocabulary  of  trade,  and  especially  of  navigation,  be  foreign  in 
its  origin,  there  is  a  strong  presumption  that  the  people  was  not, 
originally  a  commercial  one,  but  that  it  possessed  or  elaborated 
natural  products  suited  to  the  wants  or  the  tastes  of  other 
nations,  who  were  more  addicted  to  traffic  and  foreign  inter- 
course by  sea  or  land  —  and  that  strangers  have  bestowed  a 
mercantile  nomenclature  upon  those  to  whom  they  resorted  for 
purchase  or  exchange.  If  the  dialect  of  war  be  of  alien 
parentage,  it  is  nearly  certain  that  the  people  has,  at  some 
period  of  its  existence,  been  reduced  by  conquest  and  subjected 
to  the  sway  of  another  race,  or  at  least  that  it  has  learned,  by 
often  repulsing  foreign  invasion,  effectually  to  resist  it.  If  the 
phraseology  of  law  and  of  religion  be  not  of  native  growth,  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  jurisprudence  and  the  creed  of  the  land 
have  been  imposed  upon  it  by  immigrant  legislators  and 
teachers. 

In  early  Anglican  linguistic  and  literary  history,  however,  we 
are  not  left  to  infer  the  nature  of  the  causes  of  change  from 
their  visible  effects.  The  contemporaneous  political  and  histo- 
rical records  and  monuments  —  or  rather  the  materials  for  the 
construction  of  such — are  so  numerous  and  so  full,  that  though 
we  are  left  much  in  the  dark  with  reference  to  the  social  and 
domestic  life  of  the  Norman,  and  more  especially  the  Saxon 
population,  and  to  many  grammatical  changes,  yet  the  general 
relations  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  people,  the  Eomish  mis- 
sionaries who  converted  them  to  Christianity,  the  Northmen 
who  plundered  and  for  a  brief  period  ruled  over  them,  and  the 
Norman-French  who  finally  subdued  them  and  gradually  amal- 


Lect.  IV.        CAUSES   WHICH   INFLUENCED   EARLY   ENGLISH  149 

gamated  with  them,  are  well  understood ;  and  we  can  accord- 
ingly see  in  what  way,  though  not  always  to  what  precise  extent, 
each  of  these  disturbing  influences  may  have  affected  the  speech 
of  England. 

The  difficulty  of  measuring  and  apportioning  the  relative 
amount  of  effect  produced  by  these  different  causes  arises  from 
the  fact,  that  although  they  may  sometimes  have  neutralized 
each  other,  they  are  frequently  concurrent  in  their  action,  or 
fall  in  with  already  existing  tendencies  inherent,  as  some  hold, 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  language,  but  more  probably  impressed 
upon  it  by  circumstances  common  to  all  the  nations  which  have 
participated  in  the  influences  of  modern  European  civilization. 
There  are  many  cases  in  which  it  is  quite  impracticable  to  de- 
termine to  which  of  several  possible  causes  a  given  effect  is  to 
be  ascribed.  With  respect  to  these,  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  a  balance  of  probabilities ;  and  as  to  those  numerous  phi- 
lological data  which  can  be  historically  connected  with  no  known 
older  fact,  a  simple  statement  of  the  phenomena  is,  for  the 
present,  better  than  the  shrewdest  guess  at  the  rationale  of  them. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  illustrate  the  Dark  Age  of  English 
philological  history,  the  thirteenth  century,  by  more  or  less  full 
references  to  many  of  its  most  important  relics,  but  the  attention 
of  the  student  should  be  specially  directed  to  the  four  most 
conspicuous  monumeats  which  serve  to  mark  the  progress  of 
change  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  the  English.  These  are 
Layamon's  Chronicle  of  Brutus,  the  Ancren  Riwle,  the  Ormulum, 
and  Robert  of  Grloucester's  Chronicle.  The  dialect  of  the  first 
three  of  these  is  generally  called  Semi-Saxon ;  that  of  the  last 
Early-English,  or  simply,  English.  Excepting  the  Ancren 
Riwle,  they  are,  unfortunately,  all  in  verse.  I  say  unfortunately, 
because  in  tracing  the  history  of  the  fluctuations  of  language, 
prose  writings  are  generally  much  more  to  be  depended  on  than 
poetry.  The  dialect  of  poetry  is,  for  rhetorical  reasons,  always 
more  or  less  removed  from  the  common  speech,  and  the  fetters 
of  rhythm,  metre,  alliteration,  and  rhyme  inevitably  affect  both 


150  POETIC   DICTION  Lect.  IV. 

the  choice  of  words  and  the  employment  of  inflected  forms.* 
The  conventional  canons  of  verse,  and  the  habitual  studies  and 
training  of  poetical  writers,  tend  to  beget  in  them  a  deference 
to  the  authority  of  older  models  and  an  attachment  to  archaic 
modes  of  expression.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  vocabulary  of 
poetry  is  usually  in  an  earlier  stage  of  development  than  that  of 
contemporaneous  prose,  and  especially  of  contemporaneous  ver- 
nacular speech,  and  it  is  consequently  rather  behind  than  in 
advance  of  the  language  of  common  life,  and  of  ordinary  written 
communication.  We  cannot,  therefore,  suppose  that  either  of 
the  works  to  which  I  refer  presents  a  true  picture  of  the  language 
in  which  Englishmen  spoke  and  corresponded  upon  the  moral 
and  material  events  and  interests  of  their  time,  at  the  several 
periods  when  they  were  written. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  diction  of  poetry  is  less  subject  to 
accidental  and  temporary  disturbances  than  that  of  prose ;  its 
vocabulary  and  syntax  usually  conform  more  truly  to  the  essen- 
tial genius  of  the  speech,  and  radical  and  abiding  characteristics 
of  language  are  more  faithfully  exhibited  by  it  than  by  the  dia- 

*  Van  Maerlant,  a.  d.  1235 — 1300,  in  his  Leven  van  Franciscus,  quoted  by 
Bosworth,  says ; 

Ende,  omdat  ic  Vlaminc  ben, 
Met  goeder  herte  biddic  hen, 
Die  dit  Dietsche  sullen  lesen, 
Dat  si  myns  genadich  wesen; 
Ende  lesen  sire  in  somich  woort, 
Dat  in  her  land  es  ongehoort., 
Men  moet  om  de  rime  souken 
MisseHke  tonghe  in  bouken. 

As  translated  by  Bowring,  Batav.  Anthol.  p.  25. 

For  I  am  Flemysh,  I  you  beseche 
Of  youre  courtesye,  al  and  eche, 
That  shal  thys  Doche  chaunce  peruse; 
Unto  me  nat  youre  grace  refuse  ; 
And  yf  ye  fynden  any  worde 
'  In  youre  countrey  that  ys  unherde, 

Thynketh  that  clerkys  for  her  ryme 
Taken  an  estrange  worde  sometyme. 
Bosworth,  Origin  of  the  Germ,  and  Scand.  Lang.  p.  101.     See  First 
Series,  Lecture  Vni.,  p.  175,  and  XVII.,  p.  372. 


• 


Lect.  IV.  TWELFTH   AND   THIRTEENTH    CENTURIES  151 

lect  of  other  forms  of  composition,  which  are  more  affected  by 
the  caprices  or  peculiarities  of  the  individual,  or  by  other  con- 
tingent causes. 

We  shall,  then,  not  widely  err  if  we  consider  these  works  as 
examples,  not  indeed  of  the  daily  speech  of  their  own  times, 
but  as  following,  at  a  considerable  interval,  the  general  move- 
ment of  the  English  tongue,  and,  in  the  main,  faithfully  record- 
ing its  greater  mutations. 

But,  as  has  been  before  observed,  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  the  confusion  of  dialects  was  such  during  almost  the  whole 
of  the  three  centuries  next  following  the  Norman  Conquest, 
that  no  one  could  fairly  lay  claim  to  be  considered  as  the  stand- 
ard of  the  national  tongue.  We  have  not  the  means  of  knowing 
how  far  either  of  the  writings  in  question  corresponded  with 
some  local  modification  of  the  common  speech,  or  how  far,  on 
the  contrary,  it  stands  as  a  representative  of  the  more  general 
language  of  the  land.  Critical  writers  speak  of  particular  works 
as  marked  by  Northern,  or  Southern,  or  Western,  or  Northum- 
brian, or  Anglian  peculiarities ;  but  these  terms  are,  from  our 
ignorance  of  the  local  extent  of  such  peculiarities,  necessarily 
used  in  a  vague  and  loose  application,  and  it  would  be  very 
hazardous  to  suppose  that  they  have  any  precise  geographical  or 
ethnological  accuracy. 

Of  prose  English  compositions  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  we  have  not  enough  in  print  to  enable  us  to  compare 
the  poetic  and  prose  dialects  of  those  periods,  and  our  knowledge 
of  actual  speech  in  the  vernacular  of  those  centuries  is  extremely 
limited,  our  conclusions  based  upon  uncertain  premises.  The 
Saxon  Chronicle  comes  down  to  about  the  year  1150.  The  dia- 
lect of  the  latter  portion  of  it  approximates  to  English  syntax, 
but  it  is  generally  considered  as  unequivocally  Anglo-Saxon ; 
and  there  are  many  fragments,  in  both  prose  and  verse,  of  later 
periods,  in  which  that  language  was  still  employed,  others  so 
confused  in  syntax,  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine  whether 
they  are  most  closely  related  to  the  old  language  or  to  the  new. 


152  SAXON   CHRONICLE  Lect.  IV. 

The  followinof  extract  from  the  Saxon  Chronicle  will  serve  to 
show  sufficiently  the  grammatical  character  of  Anglo-Saxon  at  a 
period  soon  after  the  Conquest ;  for  though  it  is  not  certain  at 
what  precise  date  it  was  written,  it  is  evidently  older  than  the 
chapters  which  contain  the  annals  of  the  twelfth  century. 

Millesimo  LXXXIII.  On  j^isum  geare  aras  seo  unge]>wa3iTies  on 
Glscstingabyrig  betwyx  j^am  abbode  Durstane  &  his  munecan.  jErest 
hit  com  of  fees  abbotes  unwisdome.  f  he  misbead  his  munecan  on  fela 
])ingan.  &  pa  mimecas  hit  mosndon  lufelice  to  him.  &  beadon  hine  f 
he  sceolde  healdan  hi  rihtlice.  &  lufian  hi.  &  hi  woldon  him  beon 
holde  &  gehyrsume.  Ac  se  abbot  nolde  f  aes  naht.  ac  dyde  heom  yfele. 
&  beheot  heom  wyrs.  Anes  da^ges  pe  abbot  eode  into  capitulan.  & 
sprajc  uppon  ]>a  munecas.  &  wolde  hi  mistukian.  &  sende  aefter  laswede 
mannum.  &  hi  comon  into  capitulan  on  uppon  J^a  munecas  full  gewe- 
pnede.  And  \)a  wseron  J)a  munecas  swiSe  aferede  of  heom.  nyston 
hwet  heom  to  donne  wsere.  ac  toscuton.  sume  urnon  into  cyrcan  &  be- 
lucan  ]>a  duran  into  heom.  &  hi  ferdon  aefter  heom  into  pam  mynstre. 
&  woldon  hig  lit  dragan.  pa  fa  liig  ne  dorsten  na  ut  gan.  Ac  reowlic 
f ing  fagr  gelamp  on  daeg.  -p  fa  Frencisce  men  braecen  fone  chor.  & 
torfedon  toweerd  fam  weofode.  ]>xr  fa  munecas  W£eron.  &  sume  of 
f  am  cnihtan  ferdon  uppon  f  one  uppflore.  &  scotedon  adunweard  mid 
arewan  toweard  f  am  haligdome.  swa  'p  on  f  ajre  rode,  f  e  stod  bufon 
fam  weofode.  sticodon  on  mgenige  arewan.  &  fa  wreccan  munecas 
lagon  onbuton  fam  weofode.  &  sume  crupon  under.  &  gyrne  cleopedon 
to  Gode.  his  miitse  biddende.  fa  fa  hi  ne  mihton  nane  miltse  ajt  man- 
num begytan.  Hwajt  magon  we  secgean.  buton  f  hi  scotedon  swiSe. 
&  fa  o^re  fa  dura  braecon  faer  adune.  &  eodon  inn.  &  ofslogon  sume 
fa  munecas  to  deaSe.  &  masnige  gewundedon  f serinne.  swa  f  f et  blod 
com  of  fam  weofode  uppon  fam  gradan.  &  of  fam  gradan  on  fa  flora. 
Oreo  f  a^r  wajron  ofslagene  to  deatSe.  &  eahtateone  gewundade. 

By  Thorpe's  nearly  literal  translation  of  this  passage,  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  construction  of  the  period  was  rapidly  ap- 
proaching to  the  modern  English  arrangement.  Keeping  this 
in  mind,  the  student  will  be  able  to  compare  the  text  and  the 
translation  by  the  aid  of  these  observations. 

Ungef  wffirnes  is  from  the  adjective  gef  wser,  or  f  waer,  agreeing, 
consonant,  pleasant,  beyond  which  I  can  trace  no  radical,  nor  do  I  re- 


l.ECT.  IV.  SAXON   CHEONICLE  153 

member  any  probably  cognate  word  in  the  Gothic  languages.  It  is 
quite  obsolete  in  English; — misbead  is  from  misbeodan,  comp.  of 
the  particle  mis-  and  beodan,  to  hid,  command  or  govern; — lufelice 
is  an  adverb  from  lufian,  to  love,  meaning  here,  kindly,  aftectionately, 
— hold,  faithful,  gentle,  now  obsolete,  but  extant  in  the  sister-tongues; 
— beheot  is  from  behatan,  to  promise; — mistukian  is  a  compound 
of  mis-  and  tucian,  to  punish  or  discipline,  obsolete  in  English, 
but  still  found  in  all  the  Gothic  languages;  —  afered  of  heom, 
afraid  of  them;  dfered  is  a  participle  from  afaeran,  to  put  in 
fear  ;  afraid  is  a  corruption  of  it; — of  is  not  a  sign  of  the  possessive, 
but  means  hy;  —  toscuton  is  from  sceotan,  to  shoot,  rush,  flee; — 
urnon,  from  yrnan,  a  transpositive  form  of  rennan,  to  run; 
—  belucan,  from  beliican,  to  shut  or  lock,  whence  the  English 
lock; — gelamp  from  gelimpan  or  limpian,  to  happen,  now  obso- 
lete;— torfedon,  from  torfian,  to  throw  or  shoot,  obsolete; — weo- 
fod,  altar,  said  to  be  from  wig,  an  idol,  and  bed,  a  resting-place,  now 
obsolete; — rode  from  rod,  cross,  gallows,  extant  in  rood-loft,  Holy- 
rood,  &c.; — gyrne,  allied  to  the  modern  ?/ear/i; — miltsefrom  mild, 
merciful,  mild; — begytan,  extant  in  get,  beget;  —  eodon,  imp.  asso- 
ciate with  gan,  to  go,  obsolete  in  modern  English,  though  still  used  in 
the  fourteenth  century; — sume  J>a  munecas,  some  the  monks.  The 
modern  form,  some  of  the  monks,  is  a  foreign  idiom; — gradan,  from 
grad,  a  step,  Lat.  gradus.  I  have  no  doubt  that  gree,  gris,  a  step, 
which  occurs  in  so  many  forms  in  early  English,  and  which  some  refer 
to  a  Celtic  origin,  is  the  same  word,  and  that  the  Celts  also  took  their 
term  from  the  Latin. 

Thorpe's  translation  is  as  follows :  — 

An.  MLXXXIII.  In  this  year  arose  the  discord  at  Glastonbury,  be- 
twixt the  abbot  Thurstan  and  his  monks.  It  came  first  from  the  abbot's 
lack  of  wisdom,  so  that  he  misruled  his  monks  in  many  things,  and  the 
monks  meant  it  kindly  to  him,  and  prayed  him  that  he  would  entreat 
them  rightly,  and  love  them,  and  they  would  be  faithful  to  him,  and 
obedient.  But  the  abbot  would  naught  of  this,  but  did  them  evil,  and 
threatened  them  worse.  One  day  the  abbot  went  into  the  chapter- 
house, and  spake  against  the  monks,  and  would  misuse  them,  and  sent 
after  laymen,  and  they  came  into  the  chapter-house  upon  the  monks 
full-armed.  And  then  the  monks  were  greatly  afraid  of  them,  knew 
not  what  they  were  to  do,  but  fled  in  all  directions :  some  ran  into  the 
church  and  locked  the  doors  after  them ;  and  they  went  after  them 
into  the  monastery,  and  would  drag  them  out,  as  they  durst  not  go  out. 
But  a  rueful  thing  happened  there  on  that  day.    The  Frenchman  broke 


154  LAYAMON  Lect.  IV. 

into  the  quire,  and  hurled  towards  the  altar  where  the  monks  were ; 
and  some  of  the  young  ones  went  up  on  the  upper  floor,  and  kept 
shooting  downward  with  arrows  towards  the  sanctuary,  so  that  in  the 
rood  that  stood  above  the  altar  there  stuck  many  arrows.  And  the 
wretched  monks  lay  about  the  altar,  and  some  crept  under,  and  earn- 
estly cried  to  God,  imploring  his  mercy,  seeing  that  they  might  not  ob- 
tain any  mercy  from  men.  What  can  we  say,  but  that  they  shot 
cruelly,  and  the  others  brake  down  the  doors  there,  and  went  in,  and 
slew  some  of  the  monks  to  death,  and  wounded  many  therein,  so  that 
the  blood  came  from  the  altar  upon  the  steps,  and  from  the  steps  On  the 
floor.     Three  were  there  slain  to  death,  and  eighteen  wounded. 

Although  this  extract  shows  an  approximation  to  the  modern 
syntactical  construction,  which,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show 
in  a  former  lecture,  is  in  a  considerable  degree  borrowed  from 
the  French,  yet  thus  far  the  Saxon  vocabulary  had  received  very 
few  contributions  from  that  source.  There  is  not  a  single 
French  word  in  the  whole  passage,  while  Thorpe's  translation 
contains  fourteen,  and  eight  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  of  the 
original,  with  numerous  compounds  and  derivatives  from  the 
same  roots,  have  become  entirely  obsolete. 

The  work  of  Layamon,  or  perhaps  Lagamon — for  we  do  not 
know  the  sound  of  the  5  in  this  name — is  a  versified  chronicle 
of  the  early  fabulous  history  of  Britain  and  its  ancient  royal 
dynasty.  It  commences  with  the  destruction  of  Troy  and  the 
flight  of  ^neas,  from  whom  descended  Brutus,  the  founder  of 
the  .British  monarchy,  and  extends  to  the  reign  of  Athelstan. 
The  authorities  on  which  Layamon  founds  his  narrative,  as  he 
himself  states,  a,re  *  the  English  book  that  St.  Beda  made ' 
(meaning  probably  King  Alfred's  Anglo-Saxon  translation  of 
Beda's  Ecclesiastical  History,  from  which  however,  he  seems  to 
have  borrowed  little),  two  writers,  Albinus  and  Austin,  who  are 
not  known  to  have  produced  any  historical  works, — though  Bede 
acknowledges  his  obligations  to  the  former  for  materials  furnished 
him  for  the  composition  of  his  Ecclesiastical  History  of  England; 
and  lastly  and  chiefly,  a  third  *  book,  that  a  French  clerk  hight 
Wace  made.'     This  latter  work  is  the  romance  of  Brut,  trans- 


Lect.  IV.  LAYAMON  155 

lated  by  Wace  or  Gasse,  into  Norman-French,  from  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth's  Latin  History  of  the  Britons,  and  completed,  as 
appears  by  the  concluding  couplet  of  the  poem,  in  the  year 
1155. 

Layamon  has  enlarged  upon  his  original,  for  the  version 
of  Wace  contains  but  15,300  lines,  while  Layamon's  work 
extends  to  more  than  32,000,  though,  as  the  lines  in  the 
latter  are  shorter  than  the  octo-syllabic  verse  of  Wace,  the 
quantity  of  matter  is  not  twice  as  great.  Some  unimportant 
passages  of  Wace  are  omitted,  and  much  is  added.  The  addi- 
tions by  Layamon  are  the  finest  parts  of  the  work,  almost  the 
only  part,  in  fact,  which  can  be  held  to  possess  any  poetical 
merit.  We  have  not  the  means  of  ascertaining  how  far  these 
are  of  Layamon's  own  invention,  for  he  occasionally  refers,  in 
a  vague  way,  to  other  '  books '  as  authorities  for  his  narratives, 
and  it  is  probable  that  many  of  the  incidents  were  borrowed 
from  older  and  now  forgotten  legends.  In  general,  however, 
the  work  has  more  the  air  of  an  original  than  of  a  translation. 
It  seldom  conforms  closely  to  the  text  of  Wace,  and  it  has  a 
comparative  elevation  of  diction,  of  thought,  and  of  imagery, 
which  entitles  it  to  a  higher  rank  than  that  work,  and  stamps  it 
as  a  production  of  some  literary  merit. 

The  versification  is  irregular,  sometimes  unrhymed  and  allite- 
rative, like  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  sometimes  rhymed 
like  that  of  Wace ;  sometimes  merely  rhythmical,  sometimes 
in  lines  composed  of  regular  feet,  thus  showing,  in  the  structure 
of  the  verse  as  well  as  in  the  syntax,  evidences  of  Norman  influ- 
ence. The  two  systems  of  versification  are  intermixed,  both 
occurring  sometimes  in  a  single  couplet,  and  the  employment  of 
neither  rests  on  any  discoverable  principle,  except  that  of  mere 
convenience  to  the  writer.  The  rhymed  lines  bear  but  a  small 
proportion  to  the  alliterative,  and  in  general  the  rhythm  follows 
that  of  Anglo-Saxon  models.  It  is  remarkable  that  asso- 
nance, or  correspondence  of  vowels  while  the  consonants  differ, 
elsewhere  hardly  known  in  English  verse,  is  much  used. 


156  LAYAMON  Lect.  IV. 

These  remarkable  discrepancies  in  versification  suggest  a 
doubt  whether  the  chronicle  of  Layamon  is  to  be  regarded  as  an 
entire  work,  and  not  rather  as  the  production  of  several  different 
hands,  whose  labours  have  been  collected  and  fashioned  into  a 
whole  by  later  editors  and  copyists.  But  the  plan  has  too  much 
unity  to  render  this  supposition  probable,  and  the  lapse  of  time 
between  the  completion  of  Wace's  poem  and  the  date  of  the 
oldest  manuscript  of  Layamon  is  too  short  to  allow  of  a  succes- 
sion of  independent  translators.  It  is,  however,  by  no  means 
unlikely  that  Layamon  availed  himself  of  versions  by  earlier 
writers,  who  translated  directly  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 
and  this  may  serve  in  some  degree  to  explain  the  want  of  uni- 
formity in  his  verse. 

There  is  neither  internal  nor  external  evidence  by  which  the 
date  of  the  poem  can  be  fixed  with  exact  precision,  but  there 
are  allusions  to  events  which  occurred  late  in  the  twelfth 
century ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  character  of  the  diction 
and  grammar  justify  us  in  saying  that  it  could  scarcely  have 
been  written  after  the  commencement  of  the  thirteenth. 

It  appears  from  the  prologue,  that  Layamon  resided  at  Ernley 
in  North  Worcestershire,  and  it  is  hence  argued  that  the  dialect 
in  which  he  wrote  was  characteristic  of  that  region.  This  is  too 
slight  evidence  to  establish  a  probability  that  he  confined  him- 
self to  the  dialect  of  a  shire,  of  which  he  may  not  have  been  a 
native  and  where  his  residence  may  have  been  short,  and  the 
external  proof  upon  this  point  is  not  entitled  to  much  con- 
sideration. 

There  exists  a  manuscript  of  Layamon,  which  appears  to  have 
been  written  about  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
was  therefore  nearly  contemporaneous  with  the  author.  In  the 
want  of  evidence  to  the  contrary,  we  are  authorised  to  presume 
that  this  manuscript  gives  us  the  work  substantially  as  Layamon 
wrote  it.  There  is  also  extant  a  manuscript  supposed  to  be 
only  half  a  century,  or  thereabouts,  younger.  This  exhibits 
differences  too  great  to  be  explained  upon  the  supposition  of  a 


Lect.  IV.  LAYAMON  157 

general  change  in  the  syntax  of  the  language  in  so  brief  a 
period,  and  which  moreover  are  not  easily  reconciled  with  any 
theory  of  the  characteristics  of  local  dialects.  We  must  con- 
clude, either  that  this  manuscript  belongs  to  a  later  period  than 
that  assigned  to  it  by  the  critics,  that  the  dialect  of  the  older 
manuscript  was  much  behind  its  time,  or  that  there  were  two 
nearly  contemporaneous  dialects  in  more  widely  different  states 
of  progress,  than  we  should  infer  from  any  other  evidence. 

The  inflectional  and  syntactical  character  of  Layamon  I  shall 
discuss  in  remarks  upon  the  passages  I  cite  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion, and  I  will  here  barely  notice  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable,  though  not  the  most  important,  peculiarity  in  the 
grammar  of  Layamon  —  the  use  of  the  possessive  pronoun  his 
as  a  sign  of  the  possessive  case,  as  when,  in  more  modem 
English,  it  was  not  unusual  to  write  John  his  book,  instead  of 
John^s  book.  As  I  have  somewhat  fully  examined  this  point  in 
my  former  series  of  Lectures  on  the  English  Language,  I  will 
not  now  again  enter  upon  it.* 

Although  the  Chronicle  of  Layamon  still  retains  a  large 
proportion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  inflectional  forms,  yet  it  approx- 
imates so  closely  to  modern  English  in  structure  of  period,  that 
no  previous  grammatical  study  is  required  to  read  it.  The  glos- 
sarial  index  of  the  admirable  edition  published  by  Sir  Frederic 
Madden  in  1857,  contains  all  the  stem-forms  and  all  the  inflec- 
tions, with  references  to  the  passages  where  they  occur ;  so  that, 
with  this  help  and  that  of  the  notes,  not  to  speak  of  the  trans- 
lation which  accompanies  the  text,  any  person  of  ordinary 
intelligence  may  peruse  it  with  entire  ease  and  satisfaction. 

The  specimens  I  select  for  illustration  of  Layamon's  dic- 
tion and  grammar  are  among  his  additions  to  Wace.  The 
first  consists  of  what  Sir  Frederic  Madden  calls  :  '  The  amusing 
and  dramatic  passages  relative  to  the  Irish,  and  their  conflict 
with  the  Britons.'     The  second  and  third  are  characterized  by 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XVIII.,  p.  401,  and  note  at  the  end  of  the  lectiire. 


158 


LAYAMON 


Lect.  IV. 


the  same  editor  as :  *  the  highly  curious  passage  [s]  regarding 
the  fairy  elves  at  Arthur's  birth,  and  his  transportation  by  them 
after  death  in  a  boat  to  Avalon,  the  abode  of  Argante,  their 
queen.'  They  will  not  give  the  reader  so  high  an  opinion  of 
Layamon's  genius  as  some  of  his  critics  have  entertained,  and  in 
fact  his  merits  as  a  translator  seem  to  be  greater  than  his  power 
as  an  original  writer. 

In  the  following  examples,  the  first  column  exhibits  the  oldest 
known  text,  believed  to  be  of  Layamon's  own  time,  or  very  near 
it ;  the  second,  as  has  been  observed,  is  thought  to  have  been 
written  about  half  a  century  later.  The  points  are  prosodical, 
not  marks  of  punctuation. 


per  ifah  Gillomar  i 

Whar  him  com  Vther. 

&  haihde  hif  cnihtes  i 

to  wepne  forS  rihtes. 

&  heo  to-biliue  i 

&  gripen  heore  cniues. 

&  of  mid  here  breclies  i 

feolcutS  weoren  heore  lechef. 

&  igripen  on  heore  hond  i 

heore  iperen  longe. 

hengen  an  heore  ajxle  i 

mucle  wi-ajxe. 

pa  faeide  Gillomar  \>e  king  t 

a  fwiSe  feollic  }>ing. 

Her  cumecS  Vt5er  i 

Aurilies  broder. 

he  wiile  bidden  mi  gritS  i 

&  noht  fehten  me  wiS. 

|)a  formefte  beo5  hif  fvveines  i 

fare  we  heom  to-jeines. 

ne  purfe  je  nauere  rehchen  i 

fah  je  flaen  fa  wrecchen. 

For  5if  Vther  Coftantinef  fune  i 

wulle  her  mi  mon  bicume. 

&  Paflente  ajeuen  i 

hif  fader  riche. 


po  i-feh  Gillomar  i 
war  hi  com  Vther. 
and  hehte  his  cnihtes  f 
wepni  heom  forfrihtef. 
And  hii  to-bliue  i 
neomen  hire  cniues, 


and  gripen  on  hire  honde  i 
hire  speres  longe. 


po  faide  Gillomar  ])e  king  i 
a  {wipe  fellich  |>ing. 
Her  come)>  Vther  i 
Aurelie  his  broker, 
he  wole  bidde,  min  grij)  f 
and  noht  fihte  me  wi]>. 


And  5ef  Vther  Conflantines  Tone  i 
wole  her  mi  man  bi-come. 


Lect.  IV. 


LAYAMON 


159 


ich  liine  wuUen  griSien  i 
&  latten  hine  liuien. 
&  inne  faeire  be  den  '. 
Ia3den  hine  to  mine  londe. 
]>e  king  wordede  |ms  f 
|)a  while  him  a-lomp  wurf. 
Weoren  Vtheres  cnihtes  f 
at  ]7an  tune  forcS  rihtes. 
leiden  fur  a  j^ene  tun ' 
&  fehten  biliue. 

mid  fweorden  heom  to  rakeden  i 
and  ]'a  Irifce  weoren  nakede. 
pa  ifejen  Irifce  me  ' 
|)at  Brutten  wes  an  eorneft. 
feondliche  heo  fuht  i 
and  neoSeles  heo  feollen. 
heo  cleopede  on  heore  king  5 
Whar  aert  ]>u  niSing. 
6       whi  nult  \n\  hider  wenden  i 
fu  lezft  uf  her  fcenden. 
and  Paffent  ]>in  if  ere  i 
ifih  lis  fallen  here. 
cumeS  us  to  halpe  t 
mid  hahjere  ftreng'Se. 
]nf  iherde  Gillomari 
f  er  foren  wes  hif  heorte  faer. 
mid  hif  Irifce  cnihten  i 
he  com  to  ]mn  fihte. 
and  PalTend  vorS  mid  him  i 
beien  heo  weoren  ueeie. 
pa  ifeh  VSer  i 
I      J)at  icumen  wes  ]>ev  Gillomar, 

to  him  he  gon  riden  ' 
r      and  fmat  hine  i  J^ere  fide. 

J)at  ])at  fpere  J)urh  rade  i 

&  J>a  heorte  to-glad. 

Hijendliche  he  hine  biwet  i 

&  of-toc  PafTent. 

and  pas  word  sseide  i 

Vther  pe  fele. 

PafTent  ]>n  fcalt  abiden  i 


ich  hine  woUe  gri|>ie  i 
and  lete  hine  libbe. 
and  in  faire  bendes ' 
him  lede  to  mine  londe. 
\>e  kig  wordede  ]>us  t 
])e  wile  hit  bi-fulle  worf 
"Weren  Vther  his  chnihtes  i 
in  |)an  toune  forprihtes. 
and  fetten  fur  oueral  i 
in  bour  and  in  hal. 
and  fafte  to  jam  rakede  i 
and  hii  were  alle  nakede. 
po  i-fehje  Yrifle  men  i 


J>at  hii  JjufTe  fullen. 

hii  gradde  to  hire  king  f 

War  hart  ]>ou  nijnng. 

wi  nelt  ])ou  hider  wende  i 

])ou  leteft  vs  alle  afende. 


fis  ihorde  Gillomar  i 

par  vore  his  heort  was  for. 

mid  his  Yreffe  cnihtes  i 

he  com  to  pan  fihte. 

and  Pafcent  forp  mid  him  i 

beine  hii  weren  veie. 

po  ifeh  Vther  i 

pat  icome  was  Gillomar. 

to  him  he  gan  ride  i 

and  fmot  hi  in  pan  fide. 

pat  pe  fpere  porh-rod  i 

and  pe  heorte  to-glod. 

Hijenliche  he  hine  bi-went  i 

of-tock  he  fone  Pafcent. 

and  peos  word  faide  i 

Vther  pe  {sele. 

Pafcent  wi  nelt  abide  i 


160 


LAYAMON 


Lect.  IV. 


her  cumeS  Vther  riden. 

He  fmat  hine  uuenen  fat  haeued  i 

J)at  he  adun  halde. 

and  fat  fweord  putte  in  his  mu6  i 

swulc  mete  him  wes  uncuS. 

fat  f e  ord  of  fan  sworde  i 

wod  in  fere  eorSe. 

pa  faeide  Vther  i 

Paflent  li^  nu  f  er. 

nu  f  u  haueft  Brutlond  i 

al  bi-tald  to  fire  hond. 

Swa  f  e  if  nu  iraed  i 

f  er  on  f  u  a?rt  ded. 

wikien  je  fcullen  here  i 

f u  and  Gillomar  fin  ifere. 

&  briikeS  wel  Brutlod  i 

for  nu  ic  hit  bitasche  inc  an  hond. 

fat  ^it  majen  to-jere  i 

mid  uf  wunien  here. 

ne  purue  je  nauere  adrede  i 

wha  eou  fcullen  feden. 

puf  fffiide  Vder  i 

and  seoSSe  he  arnde  f  er. 

and  drof  Irifce  men  i 

jeond  wateres  and  jeond  fenes. 

and  floh  al  fa  uerde  f 

f  e  mid  Paflent  commen  to  serde. 

Summe  to  fere  sa3  iwiten  i 

&  leoppen  in  heore  fcipen. 

mid  wederen  &  mid  wateren  i 

f  ger  heo  forferden. 

puf  heo  ifpsedden  her  i 

Paflent  and  Gillomar. 


her  comef  Vther  ride. 

He  fmot  hine  ouenon  fat  heued  i 

fat  he  ful  to  pan  grunde. 

and  fat  fweord  f ut  in  his  muf  i 

foch  mete  him  was  oncouf . 

fat  f e  ord  of  f  e  fweord  i 

wond  in  fan  eorf  e. 

po  fliide  Vther  i 

Pafcent  ly  nou  far. 

nou  f  ou  haueft  Brutlond  S 

al  awonne  to  fin  hond. 


wonief  nou  here  i 

f  ou  an  Gillomare. 

and  broukef  wel  Brutlond  i 

for  nou  36  hit  habbef  an  hond. 


ne  f  erh  he  noht  drede  i 
fat  50U  fal  feode. 


pus  i-lped  here  i 
Pafcent  and  Gillomare. 
Layamon,  II.  pp.  332- 


-336. 


The  next  specimen  is  from  vol.  ii.  pp.  384,  385. 


pe  time  co  f  e  wes  icoren  i 
fa  wes  ArSur  iboren. 
Sone  fwa  he  com  an  eorSe  f 
aluen  hine  iuengen. 


pe  tyme  com  fat  was  icore  i 
f  o  was  Arf  ur  ibore. 
Sone  fo  he  to  worle  com  i 
aluene  him  onderfenge. 


Lect.  IV. 


LAYAMON 


161 


lieo  bigolen  fat  child  i 
mid  galdere  fwiSe  ftronge. 
heo  jeue  him  mihte  i 
to  beon  bezll  aire  cnihten. 

"i--=^--:-«ii-^iuLjixi..anj:ul§r  ping  i 

<\i\a\i  no  psjqSji  si  jaquinu  moA     he  king. 

bben. 
e-bern  i 


"HI 


-AavMiTDn 


...V.  ipaeh. 


and  jeiien  him  mihte  i 
to  beon  beft  aire  cnihte. 
hii  geuen  him  an  o])er  })ing 
pat  he  folde  beo  riche  king, 
hii  geuen  him  pat  pridde  i 
pat  he  folde  lange  libbe. 
hii  jeuen  pane  beorn  i 
jeftes  fwipe  gode. 
pat  he  wes  mete-cufti  i 
of  alle  cwike  manne. 
pis  pe  alfe  him  jeaf  i 
and  al  fo  pat  child  i-peh. 


The  following  passage  is  from  vol.  iii.  pp.  142 — 146. 


per  wes  Modred  of-sla^e  i 
and  idon  of  lif-daje. 

*  *  *  *  iS 

in  pan  iihte. 
per  weoren  of-fla^e  i 
alle  pa  fnelle. 
Arduref  hered-men  i 
he%e. 

and  pa  Bruttef  alle  i 
of  ArSuref  borde. 
and  alle  hif  fofterliges  i 
of  feole  kinerichef. 
And  Ar6ur  forwunded  i 
mid  •\val-fpere  brade. 
fiftene  he  hafde  i 
feondliche  wunden. 
mon  mihte  i  pare  laften  .' 
twa  glouen  iprafte. 
pa  naf  per  na  mare  i 
i  pan  fehte  to  lane, 
of  twa  hundred  pusend  monnen  i 
pa  per  leien  to-hauwe. 
buten  ArSur  pe  king  ane  i 
&  of  hifcnihtef  tweien. 


par  was  Modred  of-fla^e  i 
and  idon  of  lif-daje. 
and  alle  his  cnihtes  ' 
illaje  in  pan  fihte. 
par  weren  of-flaje  i 
alle  pe  fnelle. 
Arthures  hiredmen  i 
hehje  and  lowe. 
and  pe  Bruttes  alle  i 
of  Arthur  his  borde. 
and  alle  hi.  fofterlin..s  i 

of ne  riche. 

And him  seolf  for-w 

mid  one  fpere  brode. 

. . .  tene  he  hadde  i 

feond  ..  che  wond.. 

man  mihte  in  pan  leafte  i 

two  gloues  preafte. 

po  naf  par  na  more  i 

ileued  in  pan  fihte. 

of  two  hundred  pousend  manne 

pat  par  lay  to-hewe. 

bote  Arthur  pe  king  ' 

and  twei  of  hif  cnihtes. 


M 


162 


LATAMON 


Lect.  IV 


ArSur  wes  for-wnnded  f 

wunder  ane  fwiSe. 

J)er  to  him  com  a  cnaue  i 

fe  wes  of  hif  cimne. 

he  wef  Cadoref  fune  5 

])e  eorlef  of  Corwaile. 

Conftantin  hehte  fe  cnaue  i 

he  -Nvef  |>an  kings  deore. 

Ar?iir  him  lokede  on  i 

per  he  lai  on  folden. 

and  fas  word  feide  f 

mid  sorhfulle  heorte. 

Coftaetin  }>u  art  wilcume  J 

|ju  weore  Cadoref  fone. 

ich  J>e  bitache  here  i 

mine  kineriche. 

and  wite  mine  Bruttef  5 

a  to  j^inef  lifef. 

and  hald  heom  alle  pa  lajen  i 

|)a  habbeoS  iftonden  a  mine  da^en. 

and  alle  ]>a.  lagen  gode  i 

\)a  bi  VSeref  dajen  ftode. 

And  ich  wulle  uaren  to  Aualu  i 

to  uaireft  aire  maidene. 

to  Argante  fere  qnene  i 

aluen  fwiSe  fceone. 

&  heo  flal  mine  wunden  i 

makien  alle  ifunde. 

al  hal  me  makien  i 

mid  haleweixe  drechen. 

And  feoSe  ich  cumen  wulle  I 

to  mine  kineriche. 

and  wunien  mid  Brutten  t 

mid  muchelere  wiinne. 

^fhe  fan  worden  i 

per  com  of  fe  wenden. 

fat  wes  an  sceort  bat  liSen  i 

fceouen  mid  vSen. 

and  twa  wimme  f  er  inne  i 

wunderliche  idihte. 

and  heo  nomen  ArSur  ana  i 


Arthur  was  for-wonded  i 
wonderliche  fwife. 
far  com  a  jong  cnaue  i 
"pat  was  of  his  cunne. 
he  was  Cador  his  fone  f 
eorl  of  Comwale. 
Conftantin  he  hehte  f 
f  e  king*  hine  louede. 
pe  king  to  him  bi-heold  f 

and  f  eos  word  faide. 

Constantin  f  ou  hart  wilcome  f 

fou  were  Cador.. s  f.ne. 

ich  f  e  bi-take  here  f 

mine  kineriche. 

and  wite  mine  Bruttus  i 

wel  bi  fine  liue. 


And  ich  woUe  wende  to  Auelun 

to  Argant  fare  cweane. 

and  560  fal  mine  wondes  i 

ma al  ifunde. 

al ie  i 

mid  halewei 

.nd  fuffe  ich ^enf 

to  mine 


Eafhe  fan  .... 
..r  com  of  fee  wende. 
a  lu...  fort  bot  i 
wandri  mid  f ..  beres. 

and  two  wimm ineS 

wonderliche  igynned. 
men  Arthur  anon'. 


Lect.  TV, 


LAYAMON 


163 


and  aneoufte  hine  uereden. 
and  fofte  hine  adun  leiden  i 
&  for(S  gunnen  hine  litien. 
pa  wef  hit  iwurSen  i 
])at  M'lin  feide  whilen. 
J)at  weore  unimetc  care  i 
of  Ar^uref  forS-fare. 
Bruttef  ileuetS  ^ete  5 
J?at  he  bon  on  Hue. 
and  wunnien  in  Aiialun  f 
mid  faireft  aire  ahien. 
and  lokieS  euere  Buttef  jete 
whan  ArSur  cume  liSe. 
Nif  nauer  \>e  mon  ibore  5 
of  nauer  nane  burde  icoren. 
J7e  cunne  of  |)an  fo6e  i 
of  ArSure  fugen  mare. 
Bute  while  wef  an  witeje  i 
Mffirlin  ihate. 
he  bodede  mid  worde  t 
hif  quidef  weoren  fo'Se. 
])at  an  ArSur  fculde  jete  i 
cum  Anglen  to  fulfte. 


an.  ..pan  bote  here. 

and  hine  foht.  .dun  leyde  i 

and  for]?  ...gan  wende. 

po  was onde  i 

]>at  Merlyn  faide  wile. 

]7at  folde  beon  mochel  care  i 

after  Arthures  for}>-fare. 

Brutt..  ileue]?  jete  i 

fat  ha  be.  on  Hue. 

and  w.nie  in  Auailun  i 

mid efte  aire  ewene. 


Nas  neuere  Ipe  man  ibore  i 

ne  of  womman  icore. 

fat  conne  of  fan  fof e  i 

of  Arthur  fegge  more. 

Bote  wile  was  a  witti  i 

Merlin  ihote. 

he  faide  mid  wordes  i 

his  fa^ef  were  fofe. 

fat  Arthur  folde  jite  f 

come  Bruttef ...  for  to  healpe. 


In  the  nouns,  the  earlier  text  shows  a  gradual,  not  an  abrupt, 
departure  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  inflectional  system,  the  later 
copy  a  much  wider  divergence,  and  a  confusion  of  forms  which 
is  more  embarrassing  to  the  syntax  than  the  dropping  of  the 
case-endings  altogether  would  have  been.  The  most  obvious 
changes  in  the  inflections  and  construction  of  nouns  are  that  in 
both  texts  the  plural  in  s  is  very  freely  used,  and  that,  in  the 
later,  the  preposition  of  is  employed  with  the  genitive,  or,  with 
a  stem-form  of  the  noun,  as  a  sign  of  the  genitive. 

In  the  adjective,  the  distinction  between  the  definite  and  in- 
definite forms  is  generally  observed,  though  not  unfrequently 
neglected. 

The  personal  pronouns  are,  in  the  main,  substantially  the 
same  as  in  Anglo-Saxon,  but  the  dual  form  of  none  of  them 
occurs  in  the  later  text. 


164  LAYAMON  Lect.  IV. 

The  conjugation  of  the  verb  in  most  points  resembles  the  in- 
flection of  the  same  part  of  speech  in  Anglo-Saxon,  but  the 
infinitive,  which  in  the  later  text  drops  the  characteristic  n, 
commonly  takes  the  preposition  to,  and  the  gerund  is,  not 
unfrequently,  confounded  with  the  infinitive  on  one  side,  and 
the  active  participle  in  -nde  on  the  other.  The  plural  verb  in- 
dicative present  has  generally  the  ending  -e^,  except  when  the 
pronoun  of  the  first  or  second  person  follows  its  verb,  in  which 
case  it  ends  in  -e,  or  sometimes  in  -en. 

Some  instances  of  the  confounding  of  the  active  participle 
with  the  verbal  noun  in  -^nge  are  met  with,  but  these  are  rare, 
and  in  fact  the  participle  is  not  of  frequent  occurrence  in  either 
text.  But  perhaps  the  most  important  novelty  in  Layamon's 
construction  of  the  verb  is  the  regular  employment  of  will  and 
shall  as  technical  auxiliaries.  In  both  texts,  as  will  be  seen  by 
the  extracts,  they  are  used  almost  precisely  as  in  modem 
English,  and  indeed  with  a  closer  conformity  to  the  present 
practice  than  is  found  in  many  works  of  even  as  late  a  date  as 
the  fourteenth  century. 

These  are  the  general  characteristics  of  Layamon's  syntax, 
but  there  are  certain  specific  points  in  the  diction  and  grammar 
of  the  passages  above  quoted  which  merit  more  particular 
notice. 

In  the  first  extract : 

to-biliue,  quickly,  in  a  lively  manner,  common  in  old  English,  but 
now  obsolete; — seolcuS,  sel-couth,  seldom  known,  strange,  obsolete; 
— wi-sexe,  battle-axe,  from  wig,  war,  obsolete; — swiSe,  very,  ob- 
solete;—  seollic,  obsolete,  at  least  in  this  sense,  though  probably  allied 
to  A.-S.  gesailig,  prosperous,  and  to  the  modern  silly;  —  griS, 
peace,  obsolete; — formeste,  foremost.  This  word  is  often  used  in  the 
sense  of  first,  and  is,  probably,  etymologically  identical  with  it; — fur- 
fen,  obsolete,  but  perhaps  allied  to  dai^e.  The  two  words  coincide  in 
some  of  the  Gothic  languages; — richen,  realm,  obsolete,  though  allied 
to  rich; — griSien,  to  spare,  pardon,  make  peace  with,  obsolete;  — 
wordede,  imp.  This  verb  does  not  occur  in  Anglo-Saxon,  nor  is  it 
found  in  the  Ancren  Kiwle,  in  the  Ormulum,  or  in  Coleridge's  Glossa- 


Lect.  IV.  LAYAMON  165 

rial  Index.  It  seems  to  be  a  coinage  of  Layamon's  which  failed  to  ob- 
tain circulation,  though  it  has  been  revived  in  later  ages  as  a  participial 
adjective,  and  even  as  a  verb; — a-lomp,  imp.  from  a-limpian,  to 
happen,  obsolete; — t6-rakeden,  from  raken,  to  rush,  obsolete;  — 
feondliche,  with  fury  or  hate,  from  feond,  an  enemy,  whence 
fiend,  obsolete; — niSing,  Icel.  niSingr,  craven,  obsolete; — seen  den, 
to  disgrace,  to  destroy,  obsolete; — if  ere,  companion,  obsolete; — uceie, 
fated,  Sc.  iej,  obsolete.  Fatatusis  used  in  medieval  Latin,  and  fasge 
is  found,  though  rarely,  in  Anglo-Saxon.  Historically,  uajie,  as  well  as 
A.-S.  fajge,  doubtless  comes  from  Icel.  feigr,  fated,  which  does  not 
seem  to  be  in  any  way  allied  to  fatum;  —  sele,  good,  obsolete;  — 
riden,  her  cumeS  Vther  riden,  ridden,  ridingly.  Riden  is  here 
not  the  active,  but  the  passive  participle,  in  analogy  with  the  German, 
er  kommt  geritten.  See  Lecture  II.,  Illustration  II; — halde,  imp. 
from  ha^lden,  halden,  to  sink  or  fall,  obsolete,  except,  perhaps,  in 
the  nautical  term  to  heel; — uncud,  unknown,  extant  in  uncouth,  in  a 
different,  but  derivative  sense; — ord,  point,  obsolete; — wod,  went, 
obsolete; — bi-tald,  from  bi-tellen,  to  win  or  prove,  obsolete,  unless 
we  suppose  it  to  be  the  modern  verb  tell,  so  that  bi-tald  would  mean 
told-off,  counted,  and  hence,  delivered; — iro3d,  happened,  obsolete;  — 
wikien,  to  dwell,  obsolete; — bruke]?,  from  bruken,  to  use,  obsolete; 
—  inc,  dual,  you  two,  obsolete;  —  arnde,  imp.  from  urn  en,  trans- 
positive  form  of  A.-S.  rennan,  to  run.  In  the  Glossarial  Notes,  how- 
ever, Sir  F.  Madden  expresses  the  opinion  that  arnde  is  from  sernan, 
a  causative  form  of  urnen,  signifying  to  ride; — uerde,  ferde,  host, 
army,  obsolete; — i  wit  en,  from  i- wit  en,  to  flee,  perish,  obsolete;  — 

In  the  second  extract : 

i  cor  en,  chosen,  obsolete; — iuengen,  part,  from  fengen,  to  take, 
obsolete; — bigolen,  enchanted,  obsolete;  —  galdere,  magic,  obsolete; 
— kine-bern,  child,  obsolete; — oust  en,  gifts,  conditions,  obsolete, 
but  perhaps  allied  to  choose; — mete-custi,  liberal,  or  rather  hospit- 
able. Sir  F.  Madden  ascribes  no  special  force  to  mete  in  this  com- 
pound, but,  as  in  the  corresponding  Icelandic  matarmildr,  matar- 
goSr,  matgo^Sr,  it  means  meat,  and  the  signification  is,  generous  of 
food,  hospitable.  It  is  obsolete; — i-pseh,  imp.  from  ipeon,  to  thrive, 
obsolete ;  — 

In  the  third  extract : 

snelle,  active,  brave,  obsolete, — hered-men,  attendants,  courtiers, 
retainers,  from  A.-S.  hired,  hyred,  a  family,  a  royal  court.     The 


166  LATAMON  Lkct.  IV. 

compound  Jnred-man,  so  common  in  America,  tliougli  more  probably  a 
new  word  from  the  verb  to  hire  and  jnan,  may,  possibly,  have  come 
down  from  the  A.-S.  hired-man,  Icel.  hirt5-ma^r.  The  word  is 
otherwise  obsolete; — fcole,  Icel.  feil,  many,  obsolete; — wal-spere, 
fi'om  wal,  Ava3l,  carnage,  death,  a  dead  body,  and  spere,  spear. 
Wal,  in  Icel.  valr,  is  the  first  element  in  valkyria,  chooser  of 
the  slain.  Wal  is  obsolete;  —  cnihtes,  Ger.  knecht,  knights j 
soldiers; — cnaue,  Ger.  knabe,  boy,  servafit,  knave; — cunne,  dat. 
of  cun,  kin; — fold  en,  ground,  obsolete,  unless  possibly  extant 
in  fallow; — bitache,  commit,  deliver.  Take  often  has  this  sense 
in  old  English; — wite,  govern,  rule,  obsolete; — slal,  error  of  scribe 
for  seal; — hale-weije,  balsam.  Madden  thinks  this  word  is  from 
hiel,  healing,  and  hwseg,  whey.  It  is  obsolete;  —  drenchen,  a  cau- 
sative from  drinchen,  to  drink.  At  least  this  is  quite  as  probable  as 
that  it  means  to  bathe.  The  noun  drench  is  still  used  in  an  analogous 
sense.  SeoSe,  sithen,  since;  —  wunien,  to  dwell,  Ger.  wohnen, 
obsolete  in  this  sense,  but  extant  in  wontj  tuonted; — wunne,  bliss, 
Ger.  Wonne,  obsolete; — vSen,  waves,  obsolete; — nomen,  imp. 
from  nimen,  to  take; — aneouste,  quickly,  from  A.-S.  neah,  near, 
obsolete; — gun n en,  from  gon,  gan,  old  Engl,  gan,  often  used  as  an 
auxiliary  to  form  the  past  tense; — liSen,  to  go  or  come,  obsolete;  — 
iwurSen,  Ger.  geworden,  come  to  pass,  used  in  old  English,  but 
now  obsolete; — unimete,  immeasurable,  extant  in  unmeet; — ileuet5, 
believe; — burde,  woman,  extant  in  bride; — witeje,  A.-S.  witega, 
prophet,  sage,  from  witan,  to  know,  obsolete; — bodede,  from  bodien, 
to  say;  —  quizes,  words,  allied  to  quoth;  —  fulste,  fulsten,  aid, 
obsolete. 

In  the  orthography,  the  remarkable  change  from  hw,  initial,  to  wh 
occurs.  There  are  a  few  examples  of  this  transposition  in  earlier  ma- 
nuscripts, but  I  believe  it  was  not  regularly  used  by  any  writer  before 
the  time  of  Layamon. 

In  the  above  extracts  no  word  of  Latin  or  French  etymology 
occurs,  unless  we  adopt  the  improbable  supposition  that  care, 
A.-S.  earn,  cearu,  is  from  the  Latin  cur  a.  Madden's  trans- 
lation contains  twenty  Latin  and  French  words,  exclusive  of 
repetitions.  At  least  fifty  of  the  words  employed  by  Layamon 
in  these  few  verses  are  wholly  obsolete. 

Sir  F.  Madden's  translation  of  these  passages  is  subjoined. 
Words  and  phrases   included  in  quotation-marks  are  in  the 


Lect.  IV.  LAYAMON  167 

earlier,  but  not  in  the  later  text;  words  in  brackets  are  the 
variations  of  the  later  text. 
First  extract : 

There  [Then]  saw  Gillomar  where  Uther  came  to  him,  and  com- 
manded his  knights  to  weapon  [them]  forth-right.  And  they  very 
speedily  grasped  [took]  their  knives,  '  and  off  with  their  breeches  — 
strange  were  their  looks,' — and  grasped  in  their  hands  their  long  spears, 
*  and  hung  on  their  shoulders  great  battle-axes.'  Then  said  Gillomar 
the  king  a  thing  very  strange: — "Here  cometh  Uther,  AnreUes  [Aure- 
lie  his]  brother ;  he  will  ask  my  peace,  and  not  fight  with  me.  *  The 
foremost  are  his  swains ;  march  me  against  them ;  ye  need  never  reck, 
though  ye  slay  the  wretches  ! '  For  [And]  if  Uther,  Constantines  son, 
will  here  become  my  man,  *  and  give  to  Pascent  his  fathers  realm,'  I 
will  him  grant  peace,  and  let  him  live,  and  in  fair  bonds  lead  him  to 
my  land."  The  king  spake  thus,  the  while  worse  him  [it]  befell ! 
Others  [Uther  his]  knights  were  in  the  town  forth-right,  [and]  laid 
[set]  fire  in  the  town,  and  fought  sharply ;  with  swords  [over  all,  in 
bower  and  in  hall,  and  fast]  rushed  towards  them ;  and  the  Irish  [they] 
were  [all]  naked.  When  the  Irish  men  saw,  that  '  the  Britons  were  in 
conflict,  they  fought  fiercely,  and' nevertheless  [thus]  they  fell;  they 
called  on  [to]  their  king :  "  Where  art  thou,  nithing  !  why  wilt  thou 
not  come  hither  ?  thou  lettest  us  here  [all]  be  destroyed ;  — '  and 
Pascent,  thy  comrade,  saw  us  fall  here; — come  ye  to  us  to  help,  with 
great  strength  ! '  "  Gillomar  heard  this ;  therefore  his  heart  was  sore ; 
with  his  Irish  knights  he  came  to  the  fight,  and  Pascent  forth  with  him 
— both  they  were  fated  !  When  Uther  saw,  that  Gillomar  was  'there' 
come,  to  him  he  gan  ride,  and  smote  him  in  the  side,  so  that  the  spear 
through  pierced,  and  glided  to  the  heart.  Hastily  he  passed  by  him, 
and  [he  soon]  overtook  Pascent ;  and  said  these  words  Uther  the  good : 
"  Pascent,  thou  shalt  [why  wilt  thou  not]  abide ;  here  cometh  Uther 
riding!"  He  smote  him  upon  the  head,  so  that  he  fell  down  [to  the 
ground],  and  the  sword  put  in  his  mouth  —  such  meat  to  him  was 
strange, — so  that  the  point  of  the  sword  went  in  the  earth.  Then  said 
Uther:  "Pascent,  lie  now  there;  now  thou  hast  Britain  all  won  to  thy 
hand  I  *  So  is  now  hap  to  the ;  therein  thou  art  dead; '  dwell  ye  shall 
[now]  here,  thou,  and  Gillomar  *  thy  companion,'  and  possess  well 
Britain  !  For  now  I  deliver  it  to  you  [ye  it  have]  in  hand,  '  so  that  ye 
may  presently  dwell  with  us  here ; '  ye  need  not  '■  ever '  dread  who  you 
shall  feed !  "  '  Thus  said  Uther,  and  afterwards  he  there  ran,  and  drove 
the  Irish  men  over  waters  and  over  fens,  and  slew  all  the  host  that  with 


168  LATAMON  Lect.  IV. 

Pascent  came  to  land.  Some  to  the  sea  fled,  and  leapt  into  their  ships; 
with  weather  and  with  water  there  they  perished  I '  Thus  they  *  sped ' 
here,  Pascent  and  Gillomar. 

Second  extract : 

The  time  came  that  was  chosen,  then  was  Arthur  born.  So  soon  as 
he  came  on  earth  [in  the  world],  elves  took  [received.]  him ;  'they  en- 
chanted the  child  with  magic  most  strong,'  they  [and]  gave  him  might 
to  be  the  best  of  all  knights ;  they  gave  him  another  thing,  that  he 
should  be  a  rich  king ;  they  gave  him  the  third,  that  he  should  live 
long;  they  gave  to  him  the  prince  [the  child]  virtues  [gifts]  most  good, 
so  that  he  was  most  generous  of  all  men  alive.  This  the  elves  gave 
him,  and  thus  the  child  thrived. 

Third  extract : 

There  were  slain  all  the  brave,  Arthurs  warriors,  high  and  low,  and 
all  the  Britons  of  Arthurs  [Arthur  his]  board,  and  all  his  dependants, 
of  many  kingdoms  [a  kingdom].  And  Arthur  [himself]  wounded  with 
[a]  broad  '  slaughter-'spear ;  fifteen  dreadful  wounds  he  had ;  in  the 
least  one  might  thrust  two  gloves !  Then  was  there  no  more  remained 
in  the  fight,  of  two  hundred  thousand  men  that  there  .lay  hewed '  in 
pieces,  except  Arthur  the  king  'alone,'  and  two  of  his  knights,  Arthur 
was  wounded  wondrously  much.  There  came  *to  him'  a  [young]  lad, 
who  was  of  his  kindred;  he  was  Cadors  [Cador  his]  son  'the'  earl  ot 
Cornwall;  Constantine  the  lad  [he]  hight,  he  was  dear  to  the  king  [the 
king  him  loved].  Arthur  looked  on  [The  king  beheld]  him,  '  where 
he  lay  on  ?Ae  ground,' and  said  these  words,  'with  sorrowful  heart': 
"  Constantine,  thou  art  welcome ;  thou  wert  Cadors  [Cador  his]  son. 
I  give  thee  here  my  kingdom,  and  defend  thou  my  Britons  ever  in 
[well  by]  thy  life,  '  and  maintain  them  all  the  laws  that  have  stood  in 
my  days,  and  all  the  good  laws  that  in  Uthers  days  stood.'  And  I  will 
fare  to  Avalun,  '  to  the  fairest  of  all  maidens,'  to  Argante  the  queen, 
'  an  elf  most  fair,'  and  she  shall  make  my  wounds  all  sound ;  make  me 
all  whole  with  healing  draughts.  And  afterwards  I  will  come  [again] 
to  my  kingdom,  '  and  dwell  with  the  Britons  with  mickle  joy'."  Even 
with  the  words  there  approached  from  the  sea  'that  was'  a  [little]  short 
boat,  floating  with  the  waves;  and  two  women  therein,  wondrously 
formed ;  and  they  took  Arthur  anon,  and  bare  him  quickly  [to  the 
boat],  and  laid  him  softly  down,  and  forth  they  gan  depart.  Then  was 
it  accomplished  that  Merlin  whilom  said,  that  mickle  care  (sorrow) 
should  be  of  [afler]  Arthurs  departure.     The  Britons  believe  yet  that 


Lect.  IV.  THE  ANCREN   EIWLE  169 

he  is  alive,  and  dwelletli  in  Avalun  with  the  fairest  of  all  elves  [queens] ; 
'and  the  Britons  ever  yet  expect  when  Arthur  shall  return.'  Was 
never  the  man  born,  [nor]  of  ever  any  lady  [woman]  chosen,  that 
knoweth  of  the  soothj  to  say  more  of  Arthur.  But  whilom  was  a  sage 
hight  Merlin ;  he  said  with  words, — his  sayings  were  sooth, — that  'an' 
Arthur  should  yet  come  [here  for]  to  help  the  English  [Britons]. 

Another  monument  of  little  literary  interest,  but  of  not  in- 
ferior philological,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  lexical  and 
grammatical  importance,  is  the  Ancren  Eiwle,  a  code  of  monastic 
precepts  drawn  up  in  prose  by  an  unknown  author,  for  the 
guidance  of  a  small  nunnery,  or  rather  religious  society  of 
ladies.  This  work  was  probably  composed  if  not  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  twelfth,  at  latest  very  early  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
and  is  therefore  nearly  contemporaneous  with  the  chronicle  of 
Layamon,  to  the  earlier  text  of  which  it  bears  much  resemblance. 
The  learned  editor  of  the  only  printed  edition,  that  published 
by  the  Camden  Society  in  1853,  says  nothing  of  the  probable 
age  of  his  manuscript,  but  Wright,  Eel.  Ant.  i.  65,  states  it  to 
be  of  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  There  are  at  least 
three  other  manuscripts,  besides  a  Latin  translation,  and  one  of 
the  English  copies  is  described  as  older  than  that  from  which 
tke  Camden  Society's  edition  is  printed.  They  differ  from  each 
other  considerably  in  orthography,  and  these  differences — some 
of  which  no  doubt,  were  due  to  successive  changes  in  the  current 
modes  of  spelling  —  and  the  multiplication  of  copies  of  a  work 
intended  for  the  private  use  of  three  ladies,  not  members  of  any 
religious  order,  prove  that  it  must  have  been  written  a  consider- 
able length  of  time  before  the  execution  of  the  latest  manu- 
script. I  believe,  therefore,  that  it  may  be  considered  as 
belonging  to  the  literature  of  the  twelfth,  quite  as  appropriately 
as  to  that  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

About  one  third  of  the  Ancren  Eiwle  is  occupied  with  in- 
structions for  ceremonial  observances,  the  residue  with  moral 
and  religious  teachings.  Like  so  many  other  ascetic  treatises  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  whether  intended  for  the  edification  of  the 


170  THE  ANCREN  RIWLB  Lect.  IV. 

professed  recluse  or  of  the  layman,  it  contains  little  of  dogmatic 
theology,  and  few  of  those  broader  views  of  Christian  duty 
which  belong  to  the  contemplation  of  man  as  what  Grod  made 
him  —  a  social  being.  Hence  it  has  neither  the  philosophical 
reach  of  thought  which  characterizes  the  works  of  WyclifFe  and 
Pecock,  and  which  is  a  natural  result  of  free  theological  inquiry, 
nor  the  enlightened  philanthropy  and  comprehensive  charity, 
which  breathe  from  the  writings  of  divines  emancipated  from 
the  narrow  corporate  interests  and  exclusive  duties  of  cloistered 
life. 

In  a  literary  point  of  view,,  it  has  no  such  value  as  to  entitle 
it  to  critical  notice,  and,  bearing  no  stamp  of  English  birth-right 
but  its  dialect,  it  is  only  for  the  value  of  its  vocabulary  and  its 
syntax  that  I  embrace  it  in  my  view  of  English  philological 
history.  Details  on  these  points  will  be  given  in  connection 
with  the  specimen  selected  as  an  illustration,  and  I  shall  at 
present  confine  my  observations  to  the  stock  of  words  which 
compose  its  vocabulary.  The  most  obvious  difference  in  this 
respect  between  Layamon  and  the  Ancren  Eiwle  is  the  much 
larger  proportion  of  Latin  and  Norman  words  in  the  latter. 
Sir  Frederick  Madden  finds  less  than  one  hundred  such  in  the 
57,000  verses  of  the  two  texts  of  Laj^amon.*  The  quantity  of 
matter  in  the  Ancren  Eiwle,  exclusive  of  Latin  quotations,  is 
less  than  half  of  that  in  Layamon,  but  the  glossary  to  the 
former  contains  twice  as  many  French  words  as  Layamon,  and 
yet  omits  a  large  number  because  they  were  thought  too  familiar 
to  need  explanation.     Much  of  this  difference  in  vocabulary  is 

♦  If  we  number  words  derived  from  the  French  (even  including  some  that  may 
have  come  directly  from  the  Latin),  we  do  not  find  in  the  earlier  text  of  Layamon's 
poem  so  many  as  fifty,  several  of  which  were  in  usage,  as  appears  by  the  Saxon 
Chronicle,  previous  to  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century.  Of  this  number  the 
later  text  retains  about  thirty,  and  adds  to  them  rather  more  than  forty,  which  are 
not  found  in  the  earlier  version ;  so  that  if  we  reckon  ninety  words  of  French 
origin  in  both  texts,  containing  together  more  than  56,800  lines,  we  shall  be  able 
to  form  a  tolerably  correct  estimate  how  little  the  English  language  was  really 
affected  by  foreign  converse,  even  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Sir  F.  Madden,  Pref.  to  Layamon,  vol.  i.  p.  xxiii. 


Lect.  IV.  THE   ANCREN   RIWLE  171 

doubtless  to  be  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  the  Ancren  Riwle, 
treating  of  religious  subjects,  naturally  adopted  the  dialect  of 
the  Romish  ascetic  discipline,  which  was  in  great  part  of  Latin 
derivation ;  but  still,  as  the  Ancren  Riwle  was  written  in  English, 
while  Layamon's  work  was  translated  from  French  and  Latin, 
we  should  have  expected  a  larger  relative  share  of  the  foreign 
element  in  the  latter  production  than  a  comparison  of  the  two 
exhibits.  The  Latin  and  French  words  of  the  Ancren  Riwle, 
however,  are  by  no  means  all  due  to  its  religious  character,  and 
we  find  in  it  many  Norman  terms  belonging  to  the  common 
dialect  of  secular  life.  Compound  words  of  Saxon  etymology 
are  less  frequent  in  Layamon  than  in  the  latter  work,  which  has 
some  remarkable  agglutinations,  such,  for  example,  as  stude- 
stapeluestnesse,  meaning  nearly  what  N.  P.  Willis  some- 
where calls  stay-at-home-itiveness,  the  oiKovpia  of  the  Grreeks. 
This  greater  frequency  of  Norman  words  might  be  thought  to 
prove  that  the  prose  work  is  of  later  date  than  the  poetical,  but 
it  is  by  no  means  conclusive  evidence,  because,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  the  diction  of  poetry  is  always  archaic,  and  Layamon 
probably  confined  himself  to  the  conventionally  established 
vocabulary  of  his  art.  The  orthography  appears  to  point  to  the 
opposite  conclusion,  though  this  is  a  very  doubtful  question. 
In  the  Ancren  Riwle,  the  Anglo-Saxon  ce  has  almost  disappeared 
and  the  combination  eo  is  less  frequent,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  retains  the  iw,  as  riwle,  rule,  and,  oddly  enough,  Giivs, 
Giwerie,  Jews,  Jewry,  while  in  Layamon  this  combination  is 
often  replaced  by  ew  or  eoiu.  The  Ancren  Riwle  preserves  the 
hw,  but  Layamon,  except  in  one  or  two  instances,  has  always 
wh*  The  arrangement  of  words,  however,  the  periodic  con- 
struction, which  is  less  likely  to  be  a  dialectic  peculiarity  than 

*■  Most  orthoepists  consider  hw  as  a  true  phonographic  representation  of  the 
sound  supposed  to  be  indicated  by  it,  which  is  that  of  the  modern  wh  in  whale, 
but  Klipstein's  Anglo-Saxon  Grammar,  p.  47,  note,  says:  'this  combination  of 
sound  is,  indeed,  one.'  I  know  no  criterion  by  which  we  can  determine  whether 
a  sound  be  one,  but  the  experimental  test  of  capacity  of  prolongation.  A  sound 
(if  the  singular  article  can  be  applied  to  an  articulation  composed  of  successive 


172  THE   ANCKEN   EIWLE  Lect<  IV. 

a  result  of  the  general  movement  of  speech,  is  almost  modern 
in  the  Ancren  Kiwle  — so  much  so,  sometimes,  as  to  lead  one  to 
question  the  authenticity  of  the  manuscripts — but  this  I  think 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  colloquial  style  of  the  work ;  for  the 
diction  of  common  speech  among  educated  men  at  that  period 
must  have  been  much  influenced  by  the  dialect  of  the  court  and 
the  Norman  nobility. 

The  following  extract  is  from  Part  IV.  on  Temptations. 
Camden  Society  edition,  pp.  210 — 216 :  — 

Summe  iuglurs  bee's  pet  ne  kiinnen  seruen  of  non  0(5er  gleo,  buten 
maiden  clieres  &  wrenchen  mis  hore  mu6,  &  scliulen  mid  hore  eien. 
Of  J>is  mestere  serue(5  ]?eo  uniselie  ontfule  iSe  deofles  kurt,  to  bringen  o 
leihtre  hore  ontfule  louerd.  Uor  ^if  ei  seiS  wel  oSer  deS  wel,  nonesweis 
ne  muwen  heo  loken  ]?iderward  mid  riht  eie  of  gode  heorte :  auh 
wincket^  ot5ere  half,  &  biholde'5  o  luft  &  asquint :  &  pf  fer  is  out  to 
eadwiten,  o'Ser  lodlich,  ]?iderward  heo  schuleS  mid  eiSer  eien  i  &  hwon 
heo  ihere'S  fet  god,  heo  skate's  adun  boa  two  hore  earen  i  auh  pet  lust 
a^ean  J?et  vuel  is  ever  wid  open,  peonne  heo  wrenche'S  hore  mu'S  mis, 
hwon  heo  turneS  god  to  vuel  i  &  ^if  hit  is  sumdel  vuel,  ]?ui'uh  more 
lastunge  heo  wrenche'S  hit  to  wurse.  peos  beo'S  hore  owune  prophetes 
forcwiddares.  peos  bodie'S  biuoren  hwu  pe  ateliche  deouel  schal  ^et 
agesten  ham  mid  his  grimme  grennunge,  &  hu  heo  schulen  ham  sulf 
grennen  &  niuelen,  &  makien  sur  semblaunt  uor  pe  mucliele  angoise, 
iSe  pine  of  helle.  Auh  for  J)ui  heo  beoS  J^e  lesse  te  menen,  J>et  heo 
biuorenhond  leorneS  hore  meister  to  makien  grimme  chere. 

pe  wreSfulle  biuoren  pe  ueonde  skirmeS  mid  kniues,  &  he  is  his 
knif-worpare,  &  pleieS  mid  sweordes,  &  bereS  ham  bi  pe  scherpe  orde 
uppen  his  tunge.  Sweord  &  knif  eiSer  beoS  scherpe  &  keoruinde 
wordes  fet  he  worpeS  frommard  him,  &  skirmetS  touward  cSre.     Auh 

elements),  which  requires  either  two  emissions  of  breath  or  two  different  positions 
of  the  organs  of  speech,  cannot  be  prolonged,  though  the  separate  elements  of  it 
often  may  be.  The  combination  hw,  wk,  is  not  only  incapable  of  prolongation,  but 
cannot  be  uttered  at  all  without  the  aid  of  a  third  element,  namely,  a  vowel 
following. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  sounds  which  may  be  indefinitely  prolonged,  and  yet 
seem  to  be  composed  of  two  still  more  elementary  articiilations.  I  refer  to  those 
into  whicli  the  y  consonant  appears  to  enter  as  a  subordinate  component.  The 
English  ch,  sk,  are  very  nearly  ^  +  y  and  s  +  y,  and  in  some  orthographies,  the 
Swedish,  for  example,  in  which  j  corresponds  to  our  i/  consonant,  they  are  ex- 
pressed accordingly,  as  tjader,  in  English  spelling,  chader,  sjal,  shale,  &c.  &c. 


LecT.  IV.  THE   ANCREN   RIWLE  173 

heo  bodiet5  liwu  ]?e  deoflen  schulen  pleien  mid  ham,  mid  hore  scherpe 
aules,  &  skirmen  mid  ham  abuten,  &  dvsten  ase  enne  pilcheclut,  euchon 
touward  oSer,  &  mid  helle  sweordes  alsnesien  ham  J)iiruhut,  ])et  beoS 
kene  &  keoruinde,  &  ateliche  pinen. 

pe  slowe  lis  &  slepeS  iSe  deofles  berme,  ase  his  deore  deorling  i  &  te 
deouel  leieS  his  tutel  adun  to  his  earen,  &  tutele'S  him  al  J^et  he  euer 
wule.  Uor,  so  hit  is  sikerliche  to  hwamso  is  idel  of  god  i  fe  ueond 
ma'SeleS  jeorne,  &  te  idele  underuoS  luueliche  his  lore,  pe  fet  is  idel 
&  jemeleas,  he  is  J)es  deofles  bermes  slep  :  auh  he  schal  a  domesdei 
grimliche  abreiden  mid  te  dredful  dreame  of  ])e  englene  bemen  i  &  ine 
helle  wondrede  ateliche  awakien.  '  Surgite,  mortui,  qui  jacetis  in  se- 
piilchris :  surgite,  et  venite  ad  judicium  Saluatoris.' 

pe  jiscare  is  pes  feondes  askebaSie,  &  liS  euer  iSen  asken,  &  faretS 
abuten  asken  &  bisiliche  stureS  him  uorte  rukelen  muchele  &  monie 
ruken  togedere,  &  bloweS  ferinne,  &  ablent  him  sulf  i  paSereS  &  makeS 
])erinne  figures  of  angrim,  ase  )?eos  rikenares  doS  f  habbe'8  muchel  uorto 
rikenen.  pis  is  al  pes  canges  blisse,  &  te  ueond  bihalt  al  ]?is  gomen,  & 
lauhweS  ])et  he  to  bersted.  Wei  understond  euerich  wis  mon  ]ns  i  j^et 
gold  &  seoluer  bo'Se,  &  euerich  eorSlich  eihte,  nis  buten  eorSe  &  asken, 
fet  ablent  euerichne  mon  J>et  bloaweS  in  ham  i  pet  is,  fet  boluwe'5  him 
ine  ham  i  puruh  ham  ine  heorte  prude  '  &  al  fet  he  rukele'5  &  gedereS 
togedere,  &  ethalt  of  eni  ]?inge  fet  nis  buten  asken,  more  ]>en  hit  beo 
need,  al  schal  ine  helle  iwurtien  to  him  tadden  &  neddren,  &  boSe,  ase 
Isaie  seiS,  schulen  beon  of  wurmes  his  kurtel  &  his  kuuertur,  pet  nolde 
her  pe  neodfule  ueden  ne  schruden.  '  Subter  te  sternetur  tinea,  et  ope- 
rimentum  tuum  vermis.' 

pe  jiure  glutun  is  pes  fondes  manciple.  Uor  he  stikeS  euer  iSe 
celere,  ot5er  iSe  kuchene.  His  heorte  is  iSe  disches  5  his  pouht  is  al  iSe 
neppe  i  his  lif  iSe  tunne  i  his  soule  iSe  crocke.  KumeS  for'S  biuoren 
his  Louerde  bismitted  &  bismeoruwed,  a  dischs  ine  his  one  hond,  &  a 
scoale  in  his  oSer  '  mat5eled  mid  Wordes,  &  wigeleS  ase  uordrunken  mon 
pet  bane's  imunt  to  uallen  5  bihalt  his  greate  wombe,  &  te  ueond  lauh- 
weS  pet  he  to  bersteS.  God  preateS  peos  pus  puruh  Isaie.  *  Servi  mei 
comedent,  et  vos  esurietis,'  &c.  '  '  Mine  men,'  he  seiS,  '  schulen  eten,  & 
ou  schal  euer  hungren  '  &  j^e  schulen  beon  ueondes  fode,  world  a  buten 
ende.'  '  Quantum  glorificavit  se  et  in  deliciis  fuit,  tantum  date  ei  luctum 
et  tormentum.'  In  Apocalipsi :  *  Contra  unum  poculum  quod  miscuit, 
miscete  ei  duo.'  Gif  pe  gulchecuppe  weaUinde  bres  to  drincken,  &  jeot 
in  his  wide  prote  pet  he  aswelte  wiSinnen.  Ajean  one,  ^if  him  two. 
Lo !  swuch  is  Godes  dom  a^ean  pe  jiure,  &  ajean  pe  drinckares  iSe 
Apocahpse. 


174  THE   ANCREN   RIWLE  Lect.  IV. 

The  following  words  require  explanation,  or  merit  notice,      eh e res, 
faces,  wry  faces,  grimaces.  No  satisfactory  etymology  has  been  suggested 
for  this  word,  which  occurs  in  the  Low  Latin  of  the  seventh  century. 
See  Diez  in  voc. ; — uniselie,  imhappy,  from  A.-S.  saelig,  happy,  ob- 
solete;—  ontfule,  malignant,  from    Icel.  vondr,  Dan.   ond,   evil, 
wicked.     I  believe  this  root  occurs  in  A.-S.  only  in  compounds.     It  is 
obsolete ;  —  kurt.     This  and  the  numerous  allied  words  are,  according 
to  Diez,  from  Lat.  chors,  (cohors)  cortis.  See  Ducange,  s.  v.,  where 
the   earliest   definition   is:    atrium  rusticum   stabulis  et  aliis 
aedificiis  circumdatum; — auh,but,  A.— S.  ac,  obsolete,  if  not  extant 
in  certain  uses  of  the  interjection  ah;  —  o  luft,  A.-S.  lyft,  air,  sky,  ex- 
tant in  a-loft\ — out,  aught;  —  eadwiten,  to  blame,  A.-S.,  extant  in 
to  twit;  —  lodlich,  loathsome,  A.-S.  laSlic.    This  root  seems  to  have 
passed  from  the  Gothic  into  the  Romance  languages,  as  in  Fr.  laid;  — 
sleateS  is  defined  by  Morton:  '  sleeteth,  aims  at,  hangs  down  his  ears, 
Hke  a  dog  in  pursuit  of  game.'     If  this  is  correct,  the  root  would  be 
slot' (Icel.  sl66r,  a  path),  a  track; — lastunge,  slander,  Ger.  Liister- 
ung,  obsolete;  —  forcwiddares,  foretellers,  from  cweSen,  to  say, 
obsolete; — ateliche,  hateful; — agesten,  to  frighten,  either  the  A.-S. 
egesian,  or  from  the  same  root  as  aghast;  —  niuelen.     Morton  sug- 
gests to  beat  with  the  fists,  in  analogy  with  Sc.  to  nevel,  to  strike,  as 
the  meaning.   I  think,  however,  the  A.-S.  neowel,  prostrate,  furnishes 
a  better  etymology,  and  if  this  is  the  root,  niuelen  means  to  throw 
themselves  to  the  ground;  —  sur,  sour;  —  menen,  to  moan,  bemoan, 
lament; — skirmeS,  fenceth,  from  skirmen,  Fr.  escrimer,  allied  to 
Ger.  schirmen,  not  found  in  A.-S.,  and  extant  in  English  only  in 
skirmish \  —  knif-worpare,   knife-thrower,   knif  and   wo r pen   or 
weorpen,  A.-S.  weorpan,  to  throw,  obsolete;  —  ord,  point,  edge, 
obsolete;  —  pilch-clout:  pilch  is  supposed  to  be  Lat.  pelliceus, 
of  fur,  and  to  have  acquired  the  meaning  of  flannel;  —  alsnesien, 
A.-S.  asnajsan,  to  run  against,  to  strike,  obsolete;  —  berme,  bosom, 
obsolete;  —  tut  el,  mouth,  lips,  tutele'5,  from  tutelen,  to  speak. 
The  etymology  of  these  words  is  not  obvious,  unless  we  refer  them  to 
A.-S.  ])eotan,  which  is  imitative:    obsolete;  —  ma^ele'5,  from  ma- 
Seleti,  to  talk,  obsolete;  —  jeorne,  willingly,  extant  only  in  the  verb 
to  yearn;  —  underfoS,  receives,  from  under uongen,  obsolete;  — 
jemeleas,  heedless,  from  jeme,  care,  heed,  obsolete;  —  abreiden, 
to  awake  suddenly,  to  be  startled,  obsolete;  —  bemen,  trumpets,  obso- 
lete;—  jiscare,  covetous  man,  from  A.-S.  gytsian,  to  desire,  to 
covet,   obsolete ;  —  askebaSie,   ash -gatherer,    obsolete ;  —  r  u  k  e  1  c  n , 
to  heap  up,  A.-S.  hreac,  a  heap,  obsolete;  —  paSereS,  poketh,  the 


Lect.  IV.  THE   ANCKEN  EIWLE  175 

modem  pother,  potter ;  —  a  u  g  r  i  m ,  algorism,  algorithm,  arithmetic ;  — 
cang,  a  fool.  This  word  does  not  appear  to  be  A.-S.  Obsolete; — eihte, 
possession,  obsolete;  —  boluwe^,  disturbs  himself,  A.-S.  bolgan, 
obsolete;  —  ethalt,  from  etholden,  to  retain,  obsolete  except  in 
hold,  and  its  derivatives  and  compounds;  —  iwurSen,  to  become,  ob- 
solete ;  —  schruden,  to  clothe,  obsolete ;  —  5 i u r e ,  greedy,  obsolete ; 

—  neppe,  table-cloth,  Fr.  nappe,  extant  in  diminutive  form,  napkin; 

—  scoale,  bowl,  Dan.  Skaal,  obsolete;  —  imunt,  allied  with  mind. 
haucS  imunt,  has  in  mind  to,  hence,  is  about  to;  — a  butan  ende, 
a,  always,  obsolete;  —  butan,  without;  —  gulchecuppe,  gulchen, 
to  swallow,  cognate  with  Lat.  gula;  —  weallinde,  welling,  boiling, 
molten;  —  S^^^j  pour,  A.-S.  geotan,  obsolete;  —  aswelte,  perish, 
extant  in  swelter. 

In  this  extract  there  are  about  twenty  words,  excluding  repe- 
titions, of  Latin  and  French  origin.  This  is  more  than  three 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  number,  and  if  we  exclude  the  repeti- 
tions of  native  words  also,  that  proportion  would  be  greatly 
increased.  More  than  thirty  words  used  in  these  passages  have 
become  obsolete,  and  of  these,  many,  as  will  be  seen  by  the 
above  notes,  are  important.     I  add  Morton's  translation  : 

There  are  some  jesters  who  know  of  no  other  means  of  exciting  mirth 
but  to  make  wry  faces,  and  distort  their  mouth,  and  scowl  with  their 
eyes.  This  art  the  unhappy,  envious  man  practiseth  in  the  devil's 
court,  to  excite  to  laughter  their  envious  Lord.  For,  if  any  one  saith 
or  doeth  well,  they  cannot,  by  any  means,  look  that  way  with  the  direct 
eye  of  a  good  heart ;  but  wink  in  another  direction,  and  look  on  the 
left  hand,  and  obliquely  :  and  if  there  is  anything  to  blame  or  dislike, 
there  they  scowl  with  both  eyes ;  and  when  they  hear  of  any  good,  they 
hang  down  both  their  ears ;  but  their  desire  of  evil  is  ever  wide  open. 
Then  they  distort  their  mouth,  when  they  turn  good  to  evil ;  and  if 
there  is  somewhat  of  evil,  they  distort  it,  and  make  it  worse  by  de- 
traction. These  are  their  own  prophets  —  foretelling  their  OAvn  end. 
They  shew  beforehand  how  the  hateful  fiend  shall  strike  terror  into 
them  with  his  hideous  grinning ;  and  how  they  shall  themselves  gnash 
their  teeth,  and  beat  their  breasts,  with  rueful  looks  for  the  great  an- 
guish of  the  pains  of  hell.  But  they  are  the  less  to  be  pitied,  because 
they  have  learned  beforehand  their  trade  of  making  grim  cheer. 

The  wrathful  man  fenceth  before  the  devil  with  knives,  and  he  is  his 


176  '  THE  ANCREN   RIWLE  Lect.  IV. 

knife-thrower,  and  playetli  with  swords,  and  beareth  them  upon  his 
tongue  by  the  sharp  point.  Sword  and  knife  both  are  sharp  and  cutt- 
ing words  which  he  casteth  forth,  and  therewith  attacks  others.  And 
it  forebodes  how  the  devils  shall  play  with  them  with  their  sharp  awls, 
and  skirmish  about  with  them,  and  toss  them  like  a  pilch-clout  every 
one  towards  another,  and  strike  them  through  with  hell-swords,  which 
are  keen,  cutting,  and  horrible  pains.  , 

The  sluggard  lieth  and  sleepeth  in  the  devil's  bosom,  as  his  dear 
darling ;  and  the  devil  applieth  his  mouth  to  his  ears,  and  tells  him 
whatever  he  will.  For,  this  is  certainly  the  case  with  every  one  who 
is  not  occupied  in  any  thing  good  :  the  devil  assiduously  talks,  and  the 
idle  lovingly  receive  his  lessons.  He  that  is  idle  and  careless  is  the 
devil's  bosom-sleeper :  but  he  shall  on  Doomsday  be  fearfully  startled 
with  the  dreadful  sound  of  the  angels'  trumpets,  and  shall  awaken  in 
terrible  amazement  in  hell.  '  Arise,  ye  dead,  who  lie  in  graves :  arise, 
and  come  to  the  Savior's  judgment.' 

The  covetous  man  is  the  devil's  ash-gatherer,  and  lieth  always  in  the 
ashes,  and  busily  bestirs  himself  to  heap  up  much,  and  to  rake  many 
together,  and  bloweth  therein,  and  blindeth  himself,  poketh,  and  maketh 
therein  figures  of  arithmetic,  as  those  accountants  do  who  have  much 
to  reckon  up.  This  is  all  the  joy  of  this  fool,  and  the  devil  seeth  all 
this  game,  and  laugheth  so  that  he  bursteth.  Every  wise  man  well 
imderstandeth  this ;  that  both  gold  and  silver,  and  all  earthly  goods, 
are  nothing  but  earth  and  ashes,  which  blind  every  man  that  bloweth 
upon  them ;  that  is,  disquieteth  himself  for  them ;  is  proud  in  heart 
through  them ;  and  all  that  he  heapeth  up  and  gathereth  together,  and 
possesses  of  any  thing  more  than  is  necessary,  is  nothing  but  ashes,  and 
in  hell  it  shall  all  become  toads  and  adders  to  him  ;  and  both  his  kirtel 
and  his  covering,  as  Isaiah  saith,  shall  be  of  worms,  who  would  not 
feed  nor  clothe  the  needy,  '  The  worm  is  spread  under  thee,  and  the 
worms  cover  thee.' 

The  greedy  glutton  is  the  devil's  purveyor;  for  he  always  haunts  the 
cellar  or  the  kitchen.  His  heart  is  in  the  dishes ;  all  his  thought  is  oi 
the  table-cloth ;  his  life  is  in  the  tun,  his  soul  in  the  pitcher.  He 
cometh  into  the  presence  of  his  Lord  besmutted  and  besmeared,  with  a 
dish  in  one  hand  and  a  bowl  in  the  other.  He  talks  much  incoherently, 
and  staggereth  like  a  drunken  man  who  seemeth  about  to  fall,  looks  at 
his  great  belly,  and  the  devil  laughs  so  that  he  bursteth.  God  thus 
threateneth  such  persons  by  Isaiah,  '  Servi  mei  comedent,  et  vos  esu- 
rietis,'  &c. :  *  My  servants  shall  eat,  but  ye  shall  always  hunger ; '  and 
ye  shall  be  food  for  devils,  world  without  end  !     *  How  much  she  hath 


Lect.  IV.  THE   OEMULUM  177 

glorified  herself,  and  hatli  lived  deliciously,  so  mucli  torment  and  sor- 
row give  her.'  '  Contra  unum  poculum  quod  miscuit,  miscete  ei  duo.' 
Give  the  tosspot  molten  brass  to  drink,  and  pour  it  into  his  wide  throat, 
that  he  may  die  inwardly.  Lo  !  such  is  the  judgment  of  God  against 
the  glutton,  and  against  drunkards,  in  the  Apocalypse. 

The  Ormulum,  of  which  I  have  spoken  as  one  of  the  most 
important  philological  monuments  of  the  period  under  consi- 
deration, has  excited,  and,  in  some  respects,  merits  more  atten- 
tion than  the  Ancren  Riwle.* 

The  Ormulum  consists  of  a  paraphrase  of  scripture  with  a 
homiletic  commentary,  and  is  constructed  much  on  the  plan  of 
Otfrid's  Krist.  The  extant  fragments,  which  fortunately  contain 
the  dedication  and  commencement,  amount  to  twenty  thousand 
verses,  but  are  apparently  only  an  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
entire  poem.  The  author  was  Ormin,  or  Orm,  an  English 
monk  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  and  he  named  the  poem 
Ormulum  after  himself,  saying,  at  the  opening :  — 

piss  boc  iss  nemmnedd  Orrmulum 
Forr])i  ]>att  Orrm  itt  wrohhte. 

The  bestowal  of  his  own  name  upon  the  work  may  be  con- 
sidered an  indication  of  personal  vanity  on  the  part  of  the 
author,  and  it  is  evident  that  he  was  ambitious  to  distinguish 
himself  as  a  reformer,  both  in  English  philology,  or  at  least 
orthography,  and  in  religion.  His  system  of  spelling, — not  new 
in  principle,  and  to  a  certain  extent  common  to  all  the  Grothic 
languages — though  cumbersome  in  practice,  is  carried  out  by 
Ormin  with  a  consistency  and  uniformity  that  show  a  very 
careful  attention  to  English  phonology,  and  give  it  something 
of  the  merit  of  an  original  method.  He  evidently  attached 
much  value  to  this  system,  and  expected  a  considerable  circu- 
lation of  his  book,  for  he  earnestly  enjoins  upon  all  who  copy  it, 

*  See,  on  the  vocabulary  and  the  prosody  of  the  Ormulum,  First  Series, 
Lectures  V.,  pp.  110,  111 ;  VI.,  p.  123 ;  XIX.,  p.  424 ;  XXIV.,  pp.  520—522. 

N 


178  THE   OBMULUM  Lect.  IV. 

to  follow  scrupulously  the  spelling  employed  by  himself.  Either 
for  want  of  poetical  merit,  or  for  the  great  freedom  with  which 
he  censured  the  corruptions  of  the  Church,  or  because  readers 
were  repelled  by  the  uncouth  appearance  of  his  orthography,  or 
for  some  other  unknown  reason,  the  book  failed  to  secure  the 
popularity  its  author  hoped  for,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
ever  been  copied  at  all'.  The  only  existing  manuscript  is  pro- 
bably the  original  of  the  author  himself,  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  his  spelling  was  ever  adopted  by  any  other 
writer.  The  principal  peculiarity  of  Ormin's  orthography  is 
that  the  consonant  is  doubled  after  short  vowels,  except  in  a  few 
cases  where,  probably  for  want  of  room  in  the  manuscript  for 
two  consonants,  a  semicircular  mark  is  put  over  a  vowel  to  indi- 
cate its  quantity.  There  are  also  marks  of  contraction,  and 
some  other  signs  the  force  of  which  is  not  always  apparent. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  the  spelling  of  the  Ormulum  were 
proved  truly  to  represent  the  general  contemporaneous  pronun- 
ciation of  English  at  the  time  it  was  written,  this  orthography 
would  be  a  very  important  aid  in  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  that 
pronunciation,  because  the  temporal  quantity  of  all  the  vowels 
is  indicated  in  every  combination  in  which  they  can  possibly 
occur.  The  author  evidently  designed  to  make  it  a  phono- 
graphic expression  of  the  normal  English  articulation,  for  he 
expressly  declares  that  English — a  term  which  he  would  hardly 
have  applied  to  a  local  dialect  --  can  be  properly  written  in  no 
other  way.  Besides  this,  it  may  be  observed  that,  with  respect 
to  the  temporal  length  of  the  vowels,  the  notation  of  Orm,  in 
most  cases,  corresponds  with  what  is,  and  is  supposed  to  have 
long  been,  the  habitual  pronunciation  of  English,  though  in 
many  cases,  the  essential  quality  of  vowels  and  the  accentuation 
of  syllables  has  certainly  been  changed. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  Scandinavian  words  and 
idioms  in  the  vocabulary  and  syntax  has  led  many  critics  to 
regard  the  work  of  Orm  as  a  specimen  of  a  North-eastern  patois, 
deriving  a  special  character  from  the  Danish  colonists  in  that 


*-^'' 


Lect.  IV.  THE    ORMULUM  179 

quarter  of  England.*  The  weight  of  this  evidence  has  perhaps 
been  exaggerated,  and  I  do  not  attach  much  importance  to  the 
coincidences  between  the  Danish  orthography  and  that  of  the 
Ormulum.  English  pronunciation  agrees  with  the  Danish  in 
many  points  in  which  both  differ  from  the  German,  and  I  am 
much  disposed  to  believe  that  the  spelling  of  the  Ormulum 
constitutes  as  faithful  a  representation  of  the  oral  English  of  its 
time  as  any  one  work  could  be,  at  a  period  of  great  confusion  of 
speech,  t 

The  versification  differs  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  models  in 
wanting  alliteration,  and  in  possessing  a  regular  metrical  flow ; 
from  the  Norman  French  in  wanting  rhyme ;  and,  allowing  for 
the  difference  between  accent  and  classical  quantity,  it  closely 
resembles  that  of  some  Latin  poems  of  the  Middle  Ages,  from 
which  it  was  probably  imitated. 

The  vocabulary  contains  a  few  words  borrowed  from  sacred  or 
ecclesiastical  Latin,  but  scarcely  any  trace  of  Norman  influence. 
The  syntax  of  Orm,  as  will  be  seen  by  an  examination  of  the 
passages  I  select  for  illustration,  does  not  differ  much  from  that 
of  modern  English,  and  if  the  work  were  reduced  to  the  present 
orthography,  it  would  present  very  few  difficulties  to  a  reader  at 
all  familiar  with  old  English  literature.  The  most  remarkable 
general  characteristic  of  the  syntax  is  its  regularity,  which,  in 
spite  of  the  temptations  to  licence,  common  to  all  modes  of 
versification,  is  greater  than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other  English 

*  Perhaps  the  most  important  Scandinayianism  in  the  Ormulum  is  the  use  of 
aren,  the  origin  of  the  modern  are,  as  the  third  person  plural  indicative  present 
of  the  verb  beon,  ben,  beo,  ^o  i^.  Aren  occurs,  for  the  first  time  in  English  so 
far  as  I  have  observed,  on  pp.  157  and  237  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Ormulum, 
though  sinndenn,  which  in  Layamon  is  represented  by  b eon,  beo,  beo<5,  bi^, 
&c.  is  the  more  common  form  of  this  plural. 

t  The  orthography  of  the  Ormulum,  if  it  does  not  disprove  the  doctrine  of  the 
diphthongal  pronunciation  of  the  long  vowels,  certainly  lends  no  countenance  to  it. 
Had  this  been  a  very  marked  characteristic  of  the  English  articulation  of  his  time, 
it  could  hardly  have  escaped  so  acute  an  ear  as  that  of  Orm ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  the  vowels  had  been  divided  into  distinct  shades,  as  in  modern  Danish, 
he  would  have  found  himself  under  the  necessity  of  inventing  characters  to  repre- 
sent these  varieties  of  sound. 

n2 


180  THE   0RMULU3I  Lect.  IV. 

composition,  except  those  of  modern  date.  This  implies  not 
only  a  closer  attention  to  the  subject  than  had  been  bestowed 
upon  it  by  other  authors,  but  a  general  stability  of  grammatical 
forms,  evidence  of  which  is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  The 
departures  from  the  author's  own  system  are,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  as  might  be  expected,  sacrifices  to  the  canons  of 
metre. 

Considered  as  a  poem,  the  Ormulum  has  no  merit  but  that  of 
smooth,  fluent,  and  regular  versification,  and  it  exhibits  none  of 
the  characteristic  traits  of  English  genius.  With  the  exception, 
therefore,  of  its  remarkable  prosody,  its  claims  to  the  attention 
of  the  student  are  of  the  same  character  as  those  of  the  Ancrenj 
Eiwle,  and  it  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  literary  criticism. 

I  have  embraced  this  poem  in  the  same  class  with  Layamoni 
and  the  Ancren  Eiwle  in  deference  to  the  opinion  of  English; 
philologists,  who  generally  incline  to  treat  its  dialect  as  semi- 
Saxon,  rather  than  as  distinctively  English.     It  appears  to  me; 
to  belong  to  a  later  date  than  either  of  those  writings,  or  than] 
some  productions  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  here-| 
after ;  but  its  total  want  of  all  trace  of  nationality  of  thought  ] 
and  character  induces  me  to  accede  the  more  readily  to   its 
separation  from  the  literature  which  forms  the  subject  of  the 
next  lecture,  and  which,  in  some  cases  at  least,  shows  a  faint 
glimmering  of  the  spark  that  was  soon  to  be  kindled  to  a  radiant 
flame. 

Afflerr  ]?att  tatt  te  Laferrd  Crist 
After    that  that  the  Lord    Christ 

Wass  cumenn   off  Egyppte 
was     come    from  Egypt 

Inntill  pe   land  oiF  Galileo, 
into    the  land  of  Galilee, 

Till  NazaraeJ^ess  chesstre, 
to     Nazareth's     town, 

paerafflerr  sejj]?  ]>e  Goddspellboc 
thereafter  saith  the   Gospelbook 


Lect.  IV.  THE    ORMULUM  181 

Bilajf    he  j^aer  well  lannge 
remained  lie  there  well    long 

Wip]?  hise   frend    tatt   haiFdenn  himm 
with   his   friends  that       had         him 

To  jemenn    &    to   gajtenn, 
to     keep     and  to    protect, 

Wi|^]?  INIarje  }>att  hiss  moderr  wass 
with    Mary  that  his  mother  was 

&    majjdenn  )jwerrt  ut   clene, 
and     maiden    throughout  clean, 

&    wi|>]?    Josasp   ]?att  wass  himm  sett 
and  with  Joseph  that  was    him    set 

To  fedenn    &   to  fosstrenn. 
to    feed     and  to    foster. 

&     illke  Lenntenn  forenn  Jjejs 
and  every     Lent        fared  they 

Till   5  errsalajmess  chesstre 
to       Jerusalem's      city 

AjS  att   te   Passkemessedajj, 
aye  at  the     Passoverday, 

Swa  summ  ]>e    boc    hemm   tahhte, 
so       as     the  book    them    taught, 

To  frellsenn   fasr   J^att   hejhe  tid 
to     keep      there  that    holyday 

O  ])att  Judisskenn  wise, 
in  the      Jewish      wise, 

Forr  ]mtt  tejj  waeremi  gode  menu, 
for   that  they     were     good  men, 

&    Godess  lajhess  heldenn. 
and  God's     laws       held. 

And     si]7]7enn      o   Jiatt  jer   ]7att   Crist 
And  afterwards  in   the  year  that  Christ 

Wass  off  twellf  winnterr  elde 
was   of  twelve  winters    age 


182  TUB  OEMULUM  Lect.  IV. 

pe55  coiftenn  inntill  3errsalaein 
tliey     come     into     Jerusalem 

Att  tejj^re  Passkemesse, 
at    their      Passover, 

&   heldenn   J^aer  fatt  halljhe     lid 
and     held     there  that    holy      time 

O  ]?att  Judisskenn  wise. 
in  the      Jewish      wise. 

&    Jesu    Crist  wass   ]>xr   wi])]>  hemm, 
and  Jesus  Christ  was  there  with  them, 

Swa  summ  J>e  Goddspell  ki])e]?}>. 
so       as      the     Gospel      saith, 

&   affterr  |)att    te     tid   wass  gan 
and  after  that  the  time  was  gone 

pejj  wenndenn   fra    ]?e  temmple, 
they     wended    from  the   temple, 

&   ferrdenn  towarrd  Nazaras]> 
and     fared     toAvards  Nazareth 

An  dajjess    gang    till    efenn, 
a     day's    journey  till  evening, 

&   wenndenn  ]?att  te  Laferrd  Crist 
and    weened    that  the    Lord    Christ 

WiJ?])  hemm  ]>att  gate  come ; 
with    them  that  way  came ; 

&   he  wass    ]?a    behinndenn  hemm 
and  he  was  then      behind       them 

Bilefedd   att  te  temmple; 
remaining  at  the   temple; 

&    tatt    ne  wisste  nohht  hiss  kinn 
and  that  not  wist     not     his    kin 

Ace  wennde  patt  he  come, 
but  weened  that  he  came, 

&   jedenn  heore  wejje  forr]? 
and  went    their    way  forth 


Lect.  IV.  THE   ORMULUM  183 

Till  J^att  itt  comm  till    efenn, 
till  that  it  came   to  evening, 

&      ta    ])ej5  misstenn  I'e^jre  child, 
and  'then  they  missed      their   child, 

&    itt  hemm  oiFerrJ^uhhte, 
and  it   them      grieved, 

&   ^edenn    till,    &    sohhtenn  himm 
and  (they)  went,  and   sought     him 

Bitwenenn     sibbe      &  cupe, 

among      relations  and  acquaintances, 

&,    te35  ne  lundenn  nohht  off  himm, 
and  they  not    found    nought  of    him, 

Forr  he  wass  att  te  temmple. 
for  he  was  at  the   temjDle. 

&    tejs     pa    wenndenn  efFt  onnjaen 
and  they  then     turned     back  again 

])att  dere  child  to  sekenn, 
that  dear  child  to    seek, 

&   comenn    efft    till   5errsalaem, 
and    came     again  to   Jerusalem, 

To  sekenn  himm   pair   binnenn. 
to     seek      him    there  within. 

&    tejj  himm  o    pe  pridde  dajg    . 
and  they    him   on  the   third   day 

J)ser  fundenn  i    pe  temmple 
there  found   in  the    temple 

Bitwenenn  patt  Judisskenn  flocc 
among      the      Jewish     flock 

patt  lasredd  wass  o  boke; 
thf^t  learned    was  in  book ; 

&    t^re  he  satt  to  frajjnenn  hemm 
and  there  he  sat  to      ask  them 

Off  pe^jre  bokess  lare, 
of    their  book's  lore. 


184  THE   ORMULIJM  I  ect.  IV. 

&   alle  patt  hinim  herrdenn    ]>a3r, 
and  all  that  him      heard      there, 

Hemm  ])uhlite  mikell  wunnderr 
them    thought  much     wonder 

Off  J>att  he  wass  full     jajp      &    wis 
of  that  lie  was  full  shrewd  and  wise 

To  swarenn    &    to  fra^jnenn. 
to   answer  and  to       ask. 

&    Sannte  Marje  comm  till  himm 
and  Saint    Mary    came   to     him 

&    sejjde  himm  fuss  wi]?j?  worde, 
and  said  (to)  him  thus  with  word, 

Whi  didesst    tu,      lef  sune,  ])uss 
Why    didst    thou,  dear  son,  thus 

Wi}>J>  uss,  forr  uss  to  swennkenn  ? 
with   us,    for   us  to     trouble? 

Witt    hafenn  sohht     te     widewhar 
we-two   have    sought  thee  widewhere 

Ice    &     ti    faderr  ba]?e 
I   and  thy  father  both 

WiJ>]?   serrhfuU  herrte    &     sarij   mod, 
with   sorrowful  heart  and  sorry  mood, 

Whi  didesst    tu    ]?iss  dede  ? 
why    didst    thou  this  deed  ? 

&    tanne  sej^de  Jesu     Crist 
and  then     said    Jesus  Christ 

Till  bajje  ]>us3  wi]>]>  worde, 
to   both  thus  with  word, 

Whatt         wass        juw  swa  to  sekenn  me, 
what   was  (there  tc)  you   so   to    seek    me, 

Whatt        wass         juw  swa  to  serr^henn  ? 
what  was  (there  to)  you     so  to    sorrow  ? 

Ne  wisste  ^e  nohht  tatt  me     birr]> 
not    wist    ye     not    that  me  becomes 


Lect.  IV.  THE   ORMULUM  185 

Min  faderr     wille     forj^enn? 
my  filtlier's  will  (to)     do  ? 

Ne  J>att  me     birrj>     beon    hojliefull 
nor  tliat  me  becomes  (to)  be   careful 

Abntenn  hise  ])ingess  ? 
about     Ills    things? 

&    tejj  ne  mihhtenn  nohht  tatt  word 
and  they  not     might       not     that  word 

Jet     ta     wel  unnderrstanndenn ; 
yet  then  wel       understand; 

&   he     pa     jede    for]>  wij)]>  hemm 
and  he  then  went  forth  with  them 

&    dide  hemm  heore  wille, 
and  did   them    there  will, 

&   comm  wi])]7  hemm  till  Nazaraj]?, 
and  came  with  them    to  Nazareth, 

Swa  summ  ]?e  Goddspell  ki])e]>J>, 
so       as      the     Gospel      saith, 

&    till  hemm  hope  he     lutte       &      b33h 
and  to   them  both  he  obeyed  and  bowed 

J)urrh      soJ>fasst   heri'summnesse, 
through  soothfast      obedience, 

&    wass  wiJ)J>  hemm  till  ])att  he  wasa 
and  was  with  them  till  that  he  was 

OiF}>ritti5  winnterr  elde. 
of  thirty  winters'   age. 

&    ure  lafFdij  Marge  toe 
and  our  lady    Mary   took 

All  ])att  jho  sahh   &   herrde 
all  that  she  saw  and  heard 

Off  hire  sune  Jesu    Crist, 
of  her   son    Jesus  Christ, 

&    off  hiss  Goddcunndnesse, 
and  of  his       Divinity, 


186  THE  ORMULUM  Ucr.  IV. 

&   all    j^liot    held  inn  hire    ])ohht, 
and  all  she-it  held  in   her  thought, 

Swa  summ  ]>e   Goddspell  ki]?ej7j), 
so       as      the     Gospel      saith, 

&   lejjde  itt  all  tosamenn  a^j 
and   laid     it  all  together  aye 

Inn  hire  ]>ohhtess  arrke. 
in    her  thought's   ark. 

&    hire  sune     wex     &      )>raf 
And  her   son   waxed  and  throve 

I  wissdom   &   inn  elde, 
in  wisdom  and  in    age, 

&   he     wass     Godd   &   gode  menn 
and  he  was  (to)  God  and  good  men 

"Well  swij)e      lef       &   dere ; 
well  very  pleasing  and  dear ; 

&    tatt  wass  rihht,  forr  he  wass  Godd, 
and  that  was  right,  for  he  was   God, 

&     god  onn  alle  wise, 
and  good    in    all   ways. 

Her  ende]?])   nu  J^iss  Goddspell  ]?uss 
Here  endeth  now  this     Gospel     thus 

&      uss        birr])     itt         J)urrhsekenn, 
and  us  (it)  becomes  it    to  through-search, 

To  lokenn  whatt  itt    lajrej^f    uss 
to  observe  what  it  teacheth  ua 

Off  uro  sawle  nede. 
of  our  soul's  need. 

Notes. — I  have  already  stated  the  general  principle  of  Orm's  ortho- 
graphy. There  are  apparent  deviations  from  his  own  rides,  but  these, 
"when  not  mere  accidents,  are  doubtless  explicable  as  special  cases, 
though  we  cannot  always  reconcile  them  to  his  usual  practice.  It  will 
be  seen  that  in  words  beginning  with  ]>,  and  now  pronounced  with  the 
th  sound,  t  is  often  substituted,  but  this  is  always  done  in  conforinity  with 


LrcT.  IV.  THE   OF.MULUM  187 

what  was  doubtless  an  orthoepical  rule.  After  words  ending  in  d,  t, 
and  sometimes  ss,  J>  becomes  t,  as  in  the  first  line  of  the  above  extract. 
There  are  some  exceptions  to  this  rule,  but  thej  are  not  important 
enough  to  be  noticed,  frend,  the  sign  of  the  plural  is  here  omitted; — 
wass — bilefedd.  This  corresponds  with  the  German  war  geblie- 
ben; — witt,  we-two,  dual  form; — whatt  wass  guw,  what  was  to 
you,  what  had  you,  what  ailed  you;  —  me  birr]?,  the  verb  is  here  an 
impersonal,  as  ought  sometimes  was  at  a  later  period; — faderr  wille, 
the  omission  of  the  possessive  sign  after  words  indicative  of  family  re- 
lation was  very  common  for  at  least  two  centuries  after  the  time  of 
Orm  ; — jhot,  contraction  for  jho  itt. 


LECTUEE  V. 

ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATUKE  OP  THE  FIRST  PERIOD  : 
FROM  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  TO  THE  MIDDLE 
OP   THE   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY. 

As  I  have  remarked  in  a  former  lecture,  the  change  from 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Semi-Saxon  to  English  was  so  gradual,  that 
the  history  of  the  revolution  can  be  divided  only  by  arbitrary 
epochs  ;  and  I  have  given  some  reasons  for  thinking  that  what- 
ever date  we  may  assign  to  the  formation  of  the  English 
speech,  English  literature  cannot  be  regarded  as  having  had  a 
beginning  until  the  English  tongue  was  employed  in  the 
expression  of  the  conceptions  of  a  distinctively  national  genius. 
This,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot  be  said  to  have  taken  place  until 
after  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century;  but  the  incipient 
chemical  union  of  Saxon  and  French  was  attended  with  an 
effervescence  which  threw  off  some  spirited  products,  though  it 
must  be  confessed  that  most  of  what  is  called  the  English 
literature  of  the  thirteenth  century,  when  compared  with  the 
contemporaneous  poetry  of  Continental  Europe,  and  especially 
of  France,  resembles  dregs  and  lees  rather  than  anything  more 
ethereal. 

To  the  grammarian  and  the  etymologist,  the  history  of  the 
transition  period,  or  the  larva  and  chrysalis  states,  is  of  in- 
terest and  importance  as  necessary  to  a  clear  view  of  the  phy- 
siology of  the  English  speech ;  but,  both  because  I  aim  to  exhibit 
the  literary  adaptations  of  the  language  rather  than  its  genesis 


Lfxt.  V.  TEIRTEENTH   CENTURY  189 

or  its  linguistic  affinities,  and  because  of  the  extreme  difficulty 
of  intelligibly  presenting  niceties  of  grammatical  form  to  the 
ear  alone,  I  attempt  nothing  beyond  a  very  general  statement 
of  the  leading  facts  of  this  period  of  English  philological 
history. 

We  shall  have  time  and  space  to  criticise  only  the  more  con- 
spicuous writers  and  their  dialect,  and  even  among  these  writers 
I  must  confine  myself  to  those  who  were  something  more  than 
merely  products  of  their  age  and  country.  I  can  notice  only 
two  classes,  namely,  such  as  are  emphatically  important  witnesses 
to  the  state  of  English  philology  in  their  time,  and  such  as  con- 
tributed— by  the  popularity  of  their  writings  and  their  sym- 
pathy with  the  tendencies  of  the  yet  but  half-developed  nation- 
ality which  was  struggling  into  existence — to  give  form  and 
direction  to  contemporaneous  and  succeeding  literary  effi^rt,  and 
are  consequently  to  be  regarded,  not  as  examples,  results, 
simply,  but  as  creative  influences  in  English  letters. 

Of  the  former  class,  the  most  celebrated  is  the  short  procla- 
mation issued  in  the  year  1258,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III., 
which  many  English  philologists  regard  as  the  first  specimen  of 
English  as  contradistinguished  from  Semi-Saxon.*  There  is 
no  very  good  grammatical  reason  for  treating  this  proclamation 
as  belonging  to  an  essentially  different  phase  of  English  philo- 
logy from  many  earlier  writings  of  the  same  century;  for 
though  it  is,  in  particular  points,  apparently  more  modern  than 

*  I  suppose  the  editors  of  the  great  English  Dictionary  now  in  course  of  pre- 
paration under  the  auspices  of  the  London  Philological  Society,  consider  this 
state-paper  as  not  English,  but  Semi-Saxon ;  for  it  is  not  among  the  monuments 
enumerated  as  examined  for  Coleridge's  Glossarial  Index  to  the  English  literature 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  Short  as  it  is,  it  contains,  besides  some  variant  forms 
not  noticed  by  Coleridge,  these  words  not  found  in  the  Glossarial  Index  :  «,  al- 
ways, aye ;  aforesaid  {toforeniseide) ;  besigte,  provision,  ordinance ;  fremc,  profit, 
good ;  fultume,  help  ;  moge,  nobles  [?]  ;  oursclf  {usselven)  ;  rcdcsman,  councillor ; 
setncss  (isctncss),  law,  decree  ;  sign  (iscined),  verb  ;  worsen  (iwersed) ;  worthncsse, 
honour.  We  may  hence  infer  that  the  still  unpublished  relics  of  the  literature  of 
the  thirteenth  century  will  furnish  a  considerable  number  of  words  not  yet  in- 
corporated into  English  vocabidaries. 


190  PROCLAMATION   OF   HENRY  III.  Lect.  V. 

some  of  them — the  Ancren  Eiwle  for  instance  —  it  is,  in  other 
respects,  quite  as  decidedly  of  an  older  structure.  Its  real  im- 
portance arises  chiefly  from  the  fact,  that  it  is  one  of  the 
very  few  specimens  of  the  English  of  that  century,  the 
\  date  of  which  is  positively  known*,  that  of  the  older  text  of 
Layamon  being  rather  doubtful,  those  of  the  later  text  and  of 
the  Ormulum,  as  well  as  of  the  Ancren  Riwle,  and  of  most 
other  manuscripts  ascribed  to  the  thirteenth  century,  altogether 
uncertain. 

Another  circumstance  which  adds  much  to  its  value  is,  that 
it  was  issued  on  an  important  political  occasion — the  establish- 
ment of  a  governmental  council  or  commission,  in  derogation  of 
the  royal  authority,  and  invested  with  almost  absolute  powers — 
and  that,  as  appears  from  the  document  itself,  copies  of  it  were 
*l  sent,  for  public  promulgation,  to  every  shire  in  England.  The 
probability  therefore  is  strong,  that  this  translation  —  for  the 
proclamation  appears  to  have  been  drawn  up  in  French — was 
not  written  in  the  peculiar  local  dialect  of  any  one  district,  but  in 
the  form  which  most  truly  corresponded  to  the  general  features 
of  the  popular  speech,  in  order  that  it  might  be  everywhere 
intelligible.  It  must  then  be  considered  the  best  evidence 
existing  of  the  condition  of  English  at  any  fixed  period  in  the 
thirteenth  century. 

It  has  been  objected  against  this  view  of  the  philological 
importance  of  this  document,  that,  being  an  official  paper,  '  it  is 
made  up,  in  great  part,  of  established  phrases  of  form,  many  of 
which  had  probably  become  obsolete  in  ordinary  speech  and 
writing,'  f  and  hence  is  to  be  regarded  as  no  true  representative 
of  the  current  English  of  its  time,  but  as  an  assemblage  of 
archaic  forms  which  had  lost  their  vitality,  and,  of  course,  as 


•  I  am  perhaps  in  error  in  treating  the  period  to  which  this  monument  belongs, 
as  altogether  certain.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  date  of  the  original  composi- 
tion, but  are  we  sure  that  this  particular  English  copy  is  contemporaneous  with 
the  original  ? 

t  Craik,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  the  English  Language. 


LrCT.  V.  PROCLAMATION   OF   HENRY   III.  191 

belonging  philological ly  to  an  earlier  period.  This  objection  is 
founded  on  what  I  think  an  erroneous  view  of  the  facts  of  the 
case.  After  the  Conquest,  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  superseded  by 
French  and  Latin  as  the  mediums  of  official  communication, 
and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that,  except  in  grants  to  indi- 
viduals and  other  matters  of  private  concern,  Semi-Saxon  and 
Early  English  were  little,  if  at  all,  used  by  the  government,  this 
proclamation  being,  I  believe,  the  only  public  document  known 
to  have  been  promulgated  in  the  native  tongue  during  the  whole 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  It  was  probably  em- 
ployed on  this  occasion,  because  the  political  movement  which 
extorted  from  the  crown  the  establishment  of  the  commission 
was,  r.s  far  as  in  that  age  any  political  movement  could  be,  of  a 
popular  character,  and  it  was  thought  a  prudent  measure  to 
publish  this  concession  to  the  demands  of  the  people  in  a  dialect 
intelligible  to  all. 

There  were,  then,  at  that  time,  no  *  established  phrases  of 
form '  in  the  political  dialect  of  the  English  language.  The 
government  could  not  have  used  a  stereotyped  phraseology,  for 
the  reason  that  none  such  existed ;  and  accordingly  this  procla- 
mation must  be  viewed  as  an  authentic  monument  of  the  popular 
speech  of  England  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  so 
far  as  that  speech  had  yet  acquired  a  consistent  and  uniform 
character.  CX^ 

/ .  It  is  very  short,  containing,  besides  proper  names,  only  about 
three  hundred  words  in  all,  and  only  between  one  hundred  and 
thirty  and  one  hundred  and  forty  different  words,  even  counting 
as  such  all  the  different  inflections  of  the  same  stem.  Of  course, 
it  exemplifies  but  a  small  proportion  of  either  the  grammatical 
forms  or  the  vocabulary.  In  this  latter  respect  it  shows  no 
trace  of  Norman  influence,  all  the  words  being  English,  except 
the  proper  names,  a  couple  of  official  titles,  duke  and  marshal, 
and  one  or  two  words  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  had,  in  earlier 
ages  received  from  the  Latin;  but  in  the  grammar,  the  break- 
ing down  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  inflectional  system  is  plainly  per- 


192  'proclamation  of  henry  hi.  Lvct.  v. 

ceptible.     I  give  the  text  as  I  find  it  in  Haupt's   Zeitschrift, 
xi.  298,  299,  after  Pauli.* 

Henr',  thurg  Godes  fiiltume  King  on  Engleneloande,  Ihoaverd  on  Ir- 
loand,  duk'  on  Norm',  on  Aquitain',  and  eorl  on  Aniow,  send  igretinge 
to  all  hise  halde  ilaerde  and  ilaewede  on  Huntendon'  schir'. 

Thaet  witen  ge  wel  alle,  thaet  we  willen  and  unnen,  thaet  thaet  ure 
raedesmen  alle  other  the  moare  dael  of  heom,  thaet  beoth  ichosen  thurg 
us  and  thurg  thaet  loandes  folk  on  ure  kuneriche,  habbeth  idon  and 
schullen  don  in  the  worthnesse  of  Gode  and  on  ure  treowthe  for  the 
freme  of  the  loande  thurg  the  besigte  of  than  toforeniseide  redesmen, 
beo  stedefaest  and  ilestinde  in  alle  thinge  a  buten  aende,  and  we  hoaten 
aUe  ure  treowe  in  the  treowthe,  that  heo  us  ogen,  thaet  heo  stedefaest- 
liche  healden  and  swerien  to  healden  and  to  werien  the  isetnesses,  thaet 
beon  imakede  and  beon  to  makien  thurg  than  toforeniseide  raedesmen 
other  thurg  the  moare  dael  of  heom  alswo  alse  hit  is  biforen  iseid,  and 
thaet  aehc  other  helpe  thaet  ibr  to  done  bi  than  ilche  othe  agenes  alle 
men,  rigt  for  to  done  and  to  foangen,  and  noan  ne  nime  of  loande  ne 
of  egte,  wherethurg  this  besigte  muge  beon  ilet  other  iwersed  on  onie 
wise  and  gif  oni  other  onie  cumen  her  ongenes,  we  wiUen  and  hoaten, 
thaet  aUe  ure  treowe  heom  healden  deadliche  ifoan,  and  for  thaet  we 
"willen,  thaet  this  beo  stedefaest  and  lestinde,  we  senden  gew  this  writ 
open  iseined  with  ure  seel  to  halden  amanges  gew  ine  hord. 

"Witnesse  usselven  aet  Lunden'  thane  egtetenthe  day  on  the  monthe 
of  Octobr'  in  the  two  and  fowertigthe  geare  of  ure  cruninge. 

And  this  wes  idon  aetforen  ure  isworene  redesmen : 
[here  follow  the  signatures  of  several  redesmen  or  councillors] 
and  aetforen  othre  moge. 

And  al  on  tho  ilche  worden  is  isend  in  to  aeurihce  othre  shcire  ouer 
al  thaere  kuneriche  on  Engleneloande  and  ek  in  tel  Irelonde. 

In  modern  English  thus  : 

Henry,  by  the  grace  of  God  king  in  (of)  England,  lord  in  (of)  Ire- 
land, duke  in  (of)  Normandy,  in  (of)  Aquitaine,  and  earl  in  (of)  Anjou, 
sends  greeting  to  all  his  lieges,  clerk  and  lay,  in  Huntingdonshire. 

This  know  ye  well  all,  that  we  will  and  grant  that  what  our  council- 

*  I  regret  that  I  am  unable  to  furnish  a  literal  copy  of  this  interesting  docu- 
ment. Pauli,  from  whom  the  text  in  Haupt  is  printed,  has  thought  fit  to  reject 
the  g  of  the  original,  and  I  suppose  also  the  )?  and  ^,  one  or  both  of  which  it 
probably  employed.  Whether  other  changes  have  been  made,  I  do  not  know,  but 
even  these  are  as  unjustifiable  as  it  would  be  to  substitute  g  for  7,  or  ch  for  X 
in  printing  a  unique  Greek  manuscript. 


LecT.  V.  PEOCLAMATION   OF   HENRY   III 


lors,  all  or  the  major  part  of  them,  who  are  chosen  by  us  and  by  the 
land's  people  in  our  kingdom,  have  done  and  shall  do,  to  the  honour  of 
God  and  in  allegiance  to  us,  for  the  good  of  the  land,  by  the  ordinance 
of  the  aforesaid  councillors,  be  stedfast  and  permanent  in  all  things, 
time  without  end,  and  we  command  all  our  lieges  by  the  faith  that  they 
owe  us,  that  they  stedfastly  hold,  and  swear  to  hold  and  defend  the  re- 
gulations that  are  made  and  to  be  made  by  the  aforesaid  councillors,  or 
by  the  major  part  of  them,  as  is  before  said,  and  that  each  help  others 
this  to  do,  by  the  same  oath,  against  all  men,  right  to  do  and  to  receive, 
and  that  none  take  of  land  or  goods,  whereby  this  ordinance  may  be 
let  or  impaired  in  any  wise,  and  if  any  [sing.]  or  any  [plural]  trans- 
gress here  against,  we  will  and  command  that  all  our  lieges  them  hold 
as  deadly  foes,  and  because  we  will  that  this  be  stedfast  and  permanent, 
we  send  you  these  letters  patent  sealed  with  our  seal,  to  keep  among 
you  in  custody. 

Witness  ourself  at  London  the  eighteenth  day  in  the  month  of  Octo- 
ber in  the  two  and  fortieth  year  of  our  coronation. 

And  this  was  done  before  our  SM'^om  councillors : 
[Signatures] 
and  before  other  nobles  [?], 

And  all  in  the  same  words  is  sent  into  every  other  shire  over  all  the 
kingdom  in  (of)  England  and  also  into  Ireland. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  us  in  the  aspect  of  this  proclamation  is  i^~ 
a  structure  of  period  so  nearly  corresponding  with  present  usage,  that, 
as  the  above  translation  shows,  it  is  easy  to  make  a  modern  English 
version,  conforming  to  the  original  in  verbal  arrangement  and  syntax, 
and  yet  departing  very  little  from  the  idiom  of  our  own  time.  The 
positional  syntax  had  become  established,  and  the  inflectional  endings ;, 
had  no  longer  a  real  value.  True,  from  the  force  of  habit,  they  con- 
tinued long  in  use,  just  as  in  spelling  we  retain  letters  Avhich  have 
ceased  to  be  pronounced ;  but  Avhen  it  was  once  distinctly  felt  that  the 
syntactical  relations  of  words  had  come  to  depend  on  precedence  and 
sequence,  the  cases  and  other  now  useless  grammatical  signs  were 
neglected,  confounded,  and  finally  dropped,  as  were  the  original  symbols 
of  the  larger  numbers  in  the  Arabic  notation,  when  it  was  discovered 
that  position  alone  might  be  made  to  indicate  the  value  of  the  factors 
of  which  the  digits  were  the  exponents.* 

The  principle,  that  the  grammatical  categories  of  the  words  in  a 

*  See    an  explanation  of  the    origin  of  the  decimal  notation  in  a  note  to 
Humboldt's  Kosmos. 


194  PROCLAMATION   OF   HENRY   III.  Lect.  V. 

period  are  determined  by  their  relative  positions,  is  the  true  character- 
istic of  English  as  distinguished  from  Saxon,  and  if  we  could  fix  the 
epoch  at  which  this  principle  became  the  controlling  law  of  construction, 
we  could  assign  a  date  to  the  origin  of  the  English  language  as  a  new 
linguistic  individual. 

Kegel  considers  the  orthography  of  this  proclamation  so  important 
that,  in  an  article  in  the  second  number  of  the  eleventh  volume  of 
Haupt,  he  devotes  no  less  than  eight  and  twenty  closely  printed  octavo 
pages  to  an  examination  of  it.  Were  I  convinced  of  the  soundness  of 
these  speculations,  the  present  would  not  be  a  fit  place  for  the  exhibition 
of  the  results  arrived  at  by  this  writer ;  but,  however  ingenious  may 
be  his  views,  it  appears  to  me  that,  in  the  excessive  irregularity  of  all 
orthography  at  that  period,  we  may  find  sufficient  reason  for  doubting 
whether  we  are  yet  in  possession  of  sufficient  data  to  justify  any  posi- 
tive conclusions  on  the  relations  between  the  spoken  and  the  written 
tongue  of  England  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.* 

*  We  can  never  determine,  by  internal  evidence,  whether  changes  in  orthography 
are  contemporaneous  with  changes  in  pronunciation,  and  it  is  only  in  a  very  few 
recent  cases  that  we  have  any  external  evidence  on  the  subject.  The  presumption 
is  always  that  the  spelling  remained  unaltered  long  after  the  spoken  word  had 
become  very  different  in  articulation. 

If  we  compare  the  orthography  of  our  time  with  that  of  Shakspeare's  age,  we 
find  very  considerable  changes,  and  we  know  that  English  pronunciation  has  been 
much  modified  since  that  period.  (See  the  evidence  on  this  subject  in  First  Series, 
Lecture  XXII.)  But  the  changes  in  spelling  have  not,  in  general,  been  made  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  the  written  into  closer  accordance  with  the  spoken  tongue, 
but  for  etymological  reasons,  for  convenience  of  the  printer,  for  uniformity,  and 
in  some  cases  from  caprice ;  nor  have  we  any  reason  to  believe  that  our  present 
orthography  is  more  truly  phonographic  than  it  was  two  hundred  years  ago,  except, 
perhaps,  so  far  as  it  has  been  made  so  by  dropping  the  mute  e  in  many  words. 

The  Spanish  Academy  has  succeeded  in  bringing  about  a  revolution  in  the  ortho- 
graphy of  the  Castilian  language,  and  in  this  instance,  the  modern  spelling  more  truly 
represents  the  articulation  than  the  old  orthography  did.  The  change  was  not  made 
because  the  orthoepy  had  been  recently  modified,  but  to  make  the  orthography 
a  more  uniform  and  convenient  expression  of  what  had  been  for  a  long  time  the 
normal  pronunciation.  This  we  know  liistorically,  but  if  the  discussions  on  the 
subject  slioidd  be  lost,  posterity  might  as  justly  infer,  from  the  internal  evidence 
in  the  case,  that  the  articulation  of  the  Spanish  underwent  a  sudden  change  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  we  can  that  the  pronunciation  of  Saxon  words 
in  English,  in  the  time  of  Henry  III.,  differed  materially  from  that  employed  in 
the  same  words  at  the  epoch  of  the  Conquest.  And  in  the  same  way,  leaving  the 
external  evidence  out  of  the  question,  a  stranger  to  Anglo-American  usage,  ob- 
serving the  general  employment  of  Webster's  unhappy  cacography  in  New  York 
newspapers  and  school  books,  could  come  to  no  other  conclusion  than  that  the 


Lect.  V.  PROCLAMATION   OF   HENRY   III.  195 

The  following  words  seem  to  require  special  notice  : 

Verbs,  send,  3  per.  indie,  sing,  is  without  inflectional  ending  or 
other  sign  of  conjugation; — witen,  imperative,  ends  in  n  instead  of  e, 
which  latter  was  the  A.-S.  form  when  the  nominative  pronoun  followed 
the  verb; — willen,  with  n  final  instead  of  J>  or  6,  but  beoth  and 
habbeth  with  the  latter  sound; — schullen  with  ??,  as  in  A.-S. ;  — 
hoaten  with  n  instead  of  ]>  or  8; — healden  and  swerien,  sub- 
junctive, with  n  as  in  A.-S.;  — to  healden  and  to  werien,  infini- 
tives with  to,  contrary  to  A.-S. ;  beon  with  n  instead  of  A.-S.  6  ; — to 
makien,  gerundial  according  to  A.-S.  construction,  but  without  the 
characteristic  -we;  —  helpe,  subjunctive,  with  e  as  in  A.-S.; — to 
done,  gerundial  with  characteristic  ending ; — to  fo  an  gen,  gerundial 
without  characteristic  ending; — nime,  subj.  with  e  as  in  A.-S.;  — 
muge,  subj.  with  e  as  in  A.-S. ; — cumen,  probably  subj.,  with  n  as  in 
A.-S.; — healden,  subj.  with  n  as  in  A.-S.;  —  senden,  with  n  for  S; 
—  to  halden,  gerund,  without  characteristic. 

Nouns.  Igre tinge  is  not  a  participle,  but  a  noun,  greeting,  Lat. 
salutera.  The  i,  originally  an  augment  of  the  participle  and  past 
tense  of  the  verb,  is  prefixed  also  to  two  other  nouns,  isetnesses  and 
ifoan,  and  to  ilajwede,  which  is  probably  to  be  considered  as  an  ad- 
jective, though  not,  like  ilserde,  a  participial;  besigte  is  allied  to 
sight,  and  therefore  etymologically  corresponds  to  provision. 

Adjectives,  mo  are.  It  is  worth  noticing,  as  an  instance  of  the 
approximation  of  languages  which  have  long  diverged,  that  the  A.-S. 
msera  and  the  Latin  major,  are,  in  consequence  of  orthoepic  changes, 
represented  in  modern  English  and  in  Portuguese,  respectively,  by  the 
same  word,  more,  Eng.,  mor.  Port.  In  the  same  way — in  pursuance 
of  more  remarkable  laws  of  change  by  which,  in  the  Cimbric  of  the 
Sette  and  the  Tredici  Comuni,  the  Ger.  lu  becomes  h,  the  diphthong  ei 
is  sounded  o,  and  the  palatal  ch  is  changed  into  g — the  German  adjective 
weich  is,  in  Cimbric,  spelled  and  pronounced  bog,  which  agrees  in 
form,  and  in  at  least  one  meaning,  with  the  Celtic  bog.  See  a  note  on 
Buck,  in  the  American  edition  of  Wedgwood's  Diet,  of  Eng.  Etym. 
Oni  other  onie,  Regel  supposes  the  e  final  in  the  latter  example  to 
be  the  sign  of  the  plural ;  others  have  treated  it  as  a  feminine  singular 
ending.  The  question  cannot  be  determined  by  the  syntax,  for  the 
plural  might  have  been  used  after  an  alternative,  but  the  distinction  of 

people  of  the  American  commercial  metropolis  had  lately  become  so  lamentably 
depraved  in  speech  as  to  talk  of  trdve-lers,  of  dissolute  revc-lers,  and  of  Ube-ling 
smuggled  goods. 

O  2 


196  ROMANCE   OP   ALEXANDER  Lect.  V. 

grammatical  gender  was  now  so  little  regarded  that  the  e  is,  most  pro- 
bably, a  plural  sign.  The  orginal  French  of  the  proclamation,  which, 
unfortunately,  my  authority  does  not  give,  would  decide  this  question. 

Particles.  O  f  had  not  yet  become  well  recognised  as  a  sign  of  the 
genitive  or  possessive,  and  the  document  presents  several  instances  of  a 
confusion  betAveen  this  particle  and  on,  in.  On,  in  the  address,  must 
have  represented  the  French  de,  while,  in  the  body  of  the  proclamation, 
the  same  preposition  is  translated  by  of] — a  buten  aende,  PauH 
had  printed  abuten  aende,  treating  abutenasa  single  word.  Kegel, 
upon  the  authority  of  numerous  passages  in  Semi-Saxon  MSS.,  rightly 
separates  them,     a  is  an  adverb,  the  modern  aye^  forever. 

One  of  the  most  famous  among  the  fictions  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  which  were  made  familiar  to  the  English  people  of  the 
thirteenth  century  by  a  vernacular  translation,  was  the  story  of 
Alexander  the  Great.  The  remarkable  exploits  of  this  famous 
captain  filled  the  world  with  his  renown,  in  his  own  short  life- 
time ;  but  the  splendour  of  his  victories  was  for  a  time  eclipsed 
by  the  perhaps  greater  achievements,  and  the  certainly  more 
permanent  conquests,  of  Eoman  generals,  and,  during  a  period 
of  some  centuries,  his  fame  passed  quite  out  of  the  popular 
memory  of  Europe.  After  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
his  forgotten  glory  was  revived  on  the  Levantine  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  then  in  Western  Europe,  not  in  consequence 
of  the  increasing  study  of  classical  authors,  but  by  an  echo  from 
the  literature  of  far-off  countries,  where  Eome  had  won  but 
transient  and  doubtful  triumphs.  The  name  and  exploits  of 
Secunder  Dhulkarnein  *,  or  the  two-horned  Alexander,  seem 

*  May  not  this  Oriental  epithfet  be  the  origin  of  the  word  dulcarnon,  which  has 
proved  too  hard  a  problem  for  Cliaiicer's  commentators  to  solve  ?  Alexander  was 
known  to  the  Middle  Ages  as  the  great  hero  of  the  heathen  world,  the  paynim 
par  excellence,  and  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that  the  signification  of  Dhulkarnein 
was  familiar  to  them.  The  meaning  heathen  would  precisely  suit  the  word  in  the 
passage  in  Stanihurst's  Ireland,  referred  to  by  Halliwell  as  suggesting  an  ex- 
planation of  Chaucer's  didcarnov.  Stanihurst,  in  Holinshed,  vol.  vi.  p.  36, 
reprint  of  1808,  speaking  of  the  conversion  of  the  people  of  Ulster  by  St.  Patrick, 
says :  "  S.  Patrike,  considering  that  these  sealie  soules  were  (as  all  dulcarnanes 
for  the  more  part  are)  more  to  be  terrified  from  infidelitie  through  the  paines  of 
hell,  than  allured  to  Christianitie  by  the  ioies  of  heauen,"  &c.  &c. 


Lect.  V.  ROMANCE    OF   ALEXANDER  197 

never  to  have  been  obscured  in  the  East,  and,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  translations  of  Oriental  romances  founded  on  his  life,  and 
imitations  of  them,  constituted  an  important  feature  in  the 
literature  of  every  European  people  possessing  a  written 
speech. 

The  most  celebrated  and  popular,  though  not  the  earliest,  of 
these  poems,  was  the  Alexandreis  of  Philip  Grautier,  of  Lille,  or 
Chatillon,  which  was  composed,  as  appears  from  internal 
evidence,  between  the  years  1170 — 1201.  This  is  modelled 
mainly  after  Curtius,  and  is  written  in  Latin  hexameters.  It 
served  as  the  prototype  of  numerous  versions  and  paraphrases 
in  many  languages,  and  was  even  translated  into  Old-Northern 
or  Icelandic  prose,  by  command  of  Magnus  Hakonsson,  a  Nor- 
wegian king,  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Several  of  the  translations  or  imitations  of  Grautier's  work 
were  written  in  verses  of  twelve  syllables,  or  six  iambic  feet, 
which  were  probably  thought  the  nearest  approximation  to  the 
classic  hexameter  practicable  in  modern  poetry  *  ;  and  it  is  said 

Dulcarnon  occurs  twice  in  Troilus  and  Creseide,  iiiv.  914,  916.  Creseide 
says : 

And,  erne,  ywis,  faine  -would  I  don  the  best, 
If  that  I  grace  had  for  to  do  so, 
But  whether  that  ye  dwell,  or  for  him  go, 
I  am,  till  God  me  better  minde  send, 
At  dulcarnon,  right  at  my  wittes  end. 

Pandarus  replies : 

Ye,  nece,  wol  ye  here, 
Dulcarnon  is  called  fleming  of  wretches, 
It  semeth  herd,  for  wretches  wol  nought  lere, 
For  very  slouth,  or  other  wilful  tetches. 
This  is  said  by  hem  that  be  not  worth  two  fetches, 
But  ye  ben  wise,  and  that  ye  han  on  hond, 
N'  is  neither  harde,  ne  skilfull  to  withstond. 

Here  the  sense  of  dullness  or  stupidity,  so  commonly  ascribed  to  the  heathen,  is 
plainly  implied,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  precise  sense  of  the  phrases 
in  which  the  word  occurs  is  not  easily  made  out. 

*  The  earliest  attempt  at  imitation  of  the  classical  hexameter  which  I  have 
met  with  in  English  is  a  rhymed    couplet  translated  from  Virgil  in  Purvey's 


198  ROMANCE   OF   ALEXANDER  Lect.  V. 

that  alexandrine,  as  a  designation  of  a  particular  metre,  took 
its  name  from  its  employment  in  these  popular  and  widely  cir- 
culated poems.  Chaucer,  though  he  does  not  himself  write 
in  this  verse,  speaks  of  it,  under  the  name  of  exametron,  as  a 
common  heroic  measure. 

Tregedis  is  to  sayn  a  certeyn  storie, 
As  olde  bookes  maken  us  memorie, 
Of  hem  that  stood  in  gret  prosperite, 
And  is  yfallen  out  of  heigh  degre 
In  to  miserie,  and  endith  wrecchedly. 
And  thay  ben  versifyed  comunly 
Of  six  feet,  which  men  clepe  exametron. 

Monlces  Tale,  Prologue. 

The  old  English  poem  of  Kyng  Alisaunder  is,  however,  not 
in  the  same  metre  as  most  of  the  Eomance  poems  on  the  same 
subject,  but  in  a  very  irregular  rhymed  verse  of  seven  or  eight, 
and  sometimes  more  syllables.  It  is  not  a  translation  of  the 
work  of  Grautier,  but  of  some  French  poem  now  unknown,  so 
that  we  have  not  the  means  of  determining  how  far  it  is  merely 
a  faithful  version,  or  how  far  it  was  modified  by  the  translator. 
The  story,  as  narrated  in  Kyng  Alisaunder,  does  not  rest  upon 
classical  authority,  but  is,  much  more  probably,  made  up  from 
the  spurious  Alexander  of  Callisthenes  and  other  mediaeval  trans- 
lations from  Oriental  romances,  and  from  confused  Eastern 
traditions  brought  home  by  pilgrims  and  crusaders.*     That  it  is 

version  of  Jerome's  prologue  to  his  Latin  Bible.  Wycliffite  Versions,  I.  67, 
where  it  is  printed  as  prose : 

Now  maide  tumeth  age,  Saturnus  turneth  his  rewmes  ; 
Now  newe  kyn  cometh  fre,  from  an  hij,  fro  heuenli  lewmes. 

*  The  work  which,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  passed  under  the  name  of  Callisthenes, 
is  known  to  have  been  translated  from  the  Persian  into  Greek  about  the  year 
1070,  by  Simon  Seth,  an  officer  of  the  court  of  Constantinople  in  the  reign  of 
Michael  Ducas.     See  Weber's  Metrical  Romances,  vol.  i.,  Introduction,  p.  xx. 

The  intercourse  between  Western  Europe  and  the  Levant,  which  became  so 
frequent  soon  after  this  date,  introduced  this  romance  to  the  Latin  nations,  and, 
by  means  of  translations,  it  was  soon  generally  diffused  among  a  public  in  which 
the  wars  for  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  had  excited  a  new  interest  in  the 
history  and  the  geography  of  the  East.     The  wide  popularity  which  this  feeling 


Lect.  V.  ROMANCE   OF   ALEXANDIUl  199 

substantially  a  translation,  or  at  least  an  imitation,  and  not  an 
original  English  composition,  satisfactorily  appears  from  a 
variety  of  passages,  and  among  others  from  this  : 

This  batail  destuted  is, 
In  the  French,  wel  y-wis, 
Therefore  Y  have,  hit  to  colour, 
Borowed  of  the  Latyn  autour. 

2199—2202. 

To  what  Latin  author  reference  is  here  made,  does  not  appear, 
but  it  is  not  probable  that  it  was  Grautier,  for  if  the  translator  had 
been  familiar  with  that  author,  he  would  hardly  have  failed  to 
introduce  into  his  work  some  notice  of  the  death  of  Thomas  a 
Becket,  who  was  so  popular  a  saint  in  England  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  whose  martyrdom,  as  some  of  his  admirers  both 
ancient  and  modern  choose  to  call  it,  is  mentioned  by  Grautier. 

The  author  professes  to  enumerate  his  sources  at  the  com- 
mencement of  chap.  i.  of  Part  II.,  but  it  is  quite  evident  that 
he  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  real  works  of  the  writers  he 
specifies,  or  of  the  authorship  of  the  manuscripts  he  used,  and 
the  testimony  of  all  *  Latin  books '  was,  in  his  eyes,  of  equal 
weight. 

The  list  of  authorities,  in  which  the  form  of  the  names  shows 
it  to  be  a  translation  from  the  French,  is  as  follows* :  — 

Thoo  Alisaunder  went  thorough  desert, 

Many  wondres  he  seigh  apert, 

Whiche  he  dude  wel  descryue 

By  good  clerkes  in  her  lyue  ; 

By  Aristotle  his  maister  that  was ; 

Better  clerk  sithen  non  nas. 

secured  to  the  story  served  to  stimulate  still  further  the  curiosity  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  Eui'ope,  and  many  a  warrior  of  the  cross  dreamed  of  victories  as 
brilliant,  and  conquests  as  extensive,  as  those  of  Alexander.  But  this  and  other 
romances  did  another  and  better  service,  by  turning  the  attention  of  scholars 
to  the  more  authentic  sources  of  historical  information  respecting  the  life  of 
Alexander,  which  were  to  be  found  in  Curtius  and  other  Latin  authors,  and  thus 
contributed,  in  some  degree,  to  the  revival  of  a  taste  for  classic  literature. 
*  Weber,  Metrical  Eomances,  I.  pp.  199,  200. 


200  RQAIANCE   OF   ALEXANDER  Lect.  V. 

He  was  with  hjnii,  and  seigh,  and  wroot 

Alle  tliise  wondres,  (God  it  woot !  ), 

Salomon,  that  all  the  werlde  thorough  yede, 

In  sooth  witnesse  helde  hym  myde. 

Ysidre  also,  that  was  so  wys, 

In  his  bokes  telleth  this. 

Maister  Eustroge  bereth  hym  witnesse 

Of  the  wondres  more  and  lesse. 

Seint  Jerome,  yee  shullen  y-wyte, 

Hem  hath  also  in  book  y-wryte ; 

And  Magestene,  the  gode  clerk, 

Hath  made  therof  mychel  werk. 

Denys,  that  was  of  gode  memorie. 

It  sheweth  al  in  his  book  of  storie ; 

And  also  Pompie,  of  Rome  lorde, 

Dude  it  writen  every  worde. 

Beheldeth  me  therof  no  fynder ; 

Her  bokes  ben  my  shewer. 

And  the  lyf  of  Alysaunder, 

Of  whom  fleigh  so  riche  sklaunder. 

The  '  Lyf  of  Alysaunder '  here  referred  to  is  very  probably  the 
work  falsely  ascribed  to  Callisthenes,  who  is  not  mentioned  by 
name  among  the  writers  from  whom  the  author  drew. 

The  most  interesting  and  really  poetical  features  of  this  ro- 
mance are  the  few  couplets  of  descriptive  and  sentimental  verse, 
introduced  at  the  commencement  of  the  •  divisions  of  the  story. 
These  have,  in  general,  no  connection  with  the  narrative,  and, 
as  far  as  we  can  judge  by  internal  evidence,  are  interpolations 
by  the  translator,  and  therefore  probably  original  English  com- 
positions.    Thus  Part  I.  chap.  ii. : 

Averil  is  meory,  and  longith  the  day ; 
Ladies  loven  solas,  and  play; 
Swaynes,  justes ;  knyghtis,  turnay ; 
Syngith  the  nyghtyngale,  gredeth  theo  jay ; 
The  hote  sunne  chongeth  ^  the  clay, 
As  ye  well  y-seen  may. 

*  chongeth  is  probably  an  error  of  the  pen  or  press  for  clongeth  or  clingeth, 
makes  to  crack  by  drying  and  shrinkage.     It  is  not  in  Coleridge. 


Lect.  V.  EOMANCE   OF  ALEXANDER  201 

Chapter  IV. 

When  corn  ripeth  in  every  steode, 
Mury  hit  is  in  feld  and  hyde ;  ^ 
Synne  hit  is  and  schame  to  chide ; 
Knyghtis  wollith  on  huntyng  ride ; 
The  deor  galopith  by  wodis  side. 
He  that  can  his  time  abyde, 
Al  his  wille  him  shal  bytyde. 


Chapter  V. 


Chapter  VI. 


Chapter  VII. 


Chapter  X. 


Mury  time  is  the  weod  to  sere ;  ^ 
The  corn  riputh  in  the  ere  : 
The  lady  is  rody  in  the  chere ; 
And  maide  bryght  in  the  lere  ;  ^ 
The  knighttes  hunteth  after  dere, 
On  fote  and  on  desti'ere. 

Clere  and  faire  the  somerys  day  spryng, 

And  makith  mony  departyng 

Bytweone  knyght  and  his  swetyng. 

Theo  snnne  ariseth,  and  fallith  the  dewyng ; 

Theo  nesche  clay  hit  makith  clyng. 

Mony  is  jolif  in  the  mornyng, 

And  tholeth  deth  or  the  evenyng ! 

N'  is  in  this  world  so  siker  thyng 

So  is  deth,  to  olde  and  Jjng  ! 

The  tyme  is  nygh  of  heore  wend3rng. 

Ofte  springeth  the  bryghte  morwe 
Mony  to  blisse,  and  mony  to  sorwe ; 
Qued  hit  is  muche  to  borwe  : 
And  worse  hit  is  ever  in  sorwe. 
Tho  that  can  nought  been  in  pes, 
Ofte  they  maken  heom  evel  at  ese. 

In  tyme  of  May  hot  is  in  boure ; 
Divers,  in  medewe,  spryngith  Houre ; 


'  hj/de  is  a  measure  of  land,  a  field.     Perhaps  here  it  is  heath. 
*  the  weod  to  sere  ;  to  dry  and  burn  the  weeds  or  stubble. 
^  lere,  countenance,  A.-S.  hie  or. 


202  ROMANCE   OF  ALEXANDER  Lect.  V. 

The  ladies,  knyghtis  honourith ; 

Treowe  love  in  heorte  durith, 

Ac  nede  coward  byhynde  kourith ; 

Theo  large  geveth ;  the  nythyng  lourith ; 

Gentil  man  his  leman  honourith, 

In  burgh,  in  cite,  in  castel,  in  toure. 

Chapter  XII. 

Mury  hit  is  in  sonne-risyng  ? 

The  rose  openith  and  unspryng ; 

Weyes  fairith,  the  clayes  clyng ; 

The  maideues  flourith,  the  foulis  syng ; 

Damosele  makith  mornyng, 

Whan  hire  leof  makith  pertyng. 

These  passages,  it  will  be  observed,  as  well  as  the  others  of 
similar  character  which  occur  in  the  poem,  nearly  all  refer  to  a 
time  or  season  of  the  day  or  year,  but  they  are  introduced 
without  any  regard  to  the  period  of  the  occurrences  the  narra- 
tive of  which  they  introduce.  They  have  much  the  air  of  having 
been  composed  as  poetical  embellishments  of  a  calendar  or 
almanack,  and  I  suspect  them  to  have  been  taken  from  some 
such  work  —  perhaps  a  previous  production  of  the  translator 
himself —  instead  of  having  been  written  expressly  for  intro- 
duction into  his  version  of  the  Eomance  of  Alexander. 

The  geography  and  the  history,  natural  and  military,  of  this 
poem,  are  of  about  equal  value,  as  will  appear  from  the  following 
extracts : 

There  is  another  ydle  hatt  Gangerides 

There  ben  jnne  castels  and  of  poeple  pres ; 

Hy  beeth  also  mychel  and  bolde, 

As  childe  of  seven  yeres  elde, 

Hy  ne  ben  no  more  verreyment : 

Ac  hy  ben  of  body  faire  and  gent ; 

Hy  ben  natheles  faire  and  wighth, 

And  gode  and  engyneful  to  fighth, 

And  have  horses  auenaunt. 

To  hem  stalworthe  and  asperaimt. 


Lect.  V.  ROMANCE    OF   ALEXANDER  203 

Clerkes  hy  ben  with  tlie  best 

Of  alle  men  liy  ben  queyntest ; 

And  evermore  liy  betb  werrende ; 

And  upon  otlier  conquerrende ; 

By  the  mone  and  by  the  sterren, 

Hy  connen  jugge  all  werren. 

Hy  ben  the  altherbest 

That  ben  from  est  into  west ; 

For  hy  connen  shete  the  gripes  fleigheyng 

And  the  dragons  that  ben  brennyng. 

Verses  4862—4881. 

Michel  is  the  wonder  that  is  vnder  Crist  Jesus. 

There  byonden  is  an  hyU  is  cleped  Malleus. 

Listneth  now  to  me  I  praie  for  my  loue  ! 

This  hyll  is  so  heie  that  nothing  cometh  aboue ; 

The  folk  on  the  north-half  in  thester  stede  hy  beth, 

For  in  al  the  yer  no  sunne  hy  ne  seeth. 

Hy  on  the  south-half  ne  seen  sonne  non 

Bot  in  on  moneth,  atte  fest  of  Seint  John ; 

Thoo  that  woneth  in  the  est  partie, 

The  Sonne  and  the  hote  skye 

Al  the  day  hem  shyneth  on 

That  hy  ben  black  so  pycches  som. 

Verses  4902—4913. 

Ac  thoo  hem  aroos  a  vyle  meschaunce 
Kyng  Alisaunder  to  gret  greuaunce. 
Ypotamos  comen  flyngynge, 
Out  of  roches,  loude  nayinge, 
Grete  bestes  and  griselich, 
More  than  olifaunz  sikerliche. 
Into  the  water  hy  shoten  onon 
And  freten  ^  the  knighttes  every chon. 

Verses  5164—5170. 

The  gode  clerk,  men  cleped  Sohm, 
Hath  y-writen  in  his  latin, 
That  ypotame  a  wonder  beest  is 
More  than  an  olifaunt,  I  wis ; 

*  freten,  devour. 


204  ROMANCE   OF  ALEXANDER  Lect.  V. 

Toppe,  and  rugge,^  and  croupe,  and  cors, 

Is  semblabel  to  an  hors. 

A  short  beek,  and  a  croked  tayl 

He  hath,  and  bores  tussh,  saunz  fayle  ; 

Blak  is  his  heued  as  pycche. 

It  is  a  beeste  ferhche  ; 

It  wil  al  fruyt  ete, 

Applen,  noten,  reisyns,  and  whete. 

Ac  mannes  flesshe,  and  mannes  bon 

It  loneth  best  of  everychon. 

Verses  5182—5195. 

Theo  delfyns  woneth  hire  byside  ; 

A  strong  best  of  gret  pryde. 

They  haveth  schuldren  on  the  rygge, 

Eche  as  scharpe  as  sweordis  egge. 

Whan  the  delfyn  the  cokadrill  seoth, 

Anon  togedre  wroth  the  buth, 

And  smyteth  togedre  anon  ryght. 

And  makith  thenne  a  steorne  fyght, 

Ac  the  delfyn  is  more  queynter. 

And  halt  him  in  the  water  douner  ; 

And  whan  theo  kocadrill  him  over  swymmeth, 

He  rerith  up  his  brustelis  grymme, 

And  his  wombe  al  to-rent ; 

Thus  is  the  cokadrill  y-schent, 

And  y-slawe  of  theo  delfyn. 

God  geve  ows  god  fyn  ! 

Verses  6610—6625. 

The  syntactical  construction  and  inflections  of  this  poem  would  in- 
dicate a  higher  antiquity  than  its  vocabulary,  the  latter  of  which 
abounds  in  French  words,  while  the  syntax  seems  to  belong  to  a  period 
when  English  had  as  yet  borrowed  little  from  the  Norman  tongue. 
Thus  I  find  that  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  first  part  more  than  six  per 
cent,  of  the  words,  exclusive  of  proper  names,  are  French.  Several 
Scandinavian  words  also  make  their  first  appearance  in  English  in  this 
romance,  though  the  syntax  shows  no  trace  of  Old-Northern  influence. 
Thus  haume  is  the  Icelandic  hamr,  a  disguise,  generally  the  form  of  an 
animal,  assumed  by  magic  power  ;  — onde,  breath,  is  Icel.  andi;  — or- 

1  ruffge,  back. 


Lect.  V.  THE   OWL   AND   THE   NIGHTINGALE  205 

ped,  valiant,  is  tliought  to  be  the  Icel.  participle  orpinn,  from  verpa, 
to  throw,  but  as  orpinn  is  not  used  in  this  sense  in  Icelandic,  the 
etymology  is  at  least  doubtful ;  — punge,  purse,  is  the  Icel.  piingr. 

An  important  work,  sometimes  ascribed  to  a  more  ancient 
date,  but  I  believe  pretty  certainly  belonging  to  this  century,  is 
The  Owl  and  Nightingale,  a  rhyming  poem  of  about  eighteen 
hundred  verses,  in  octosyllabic  iambic  metre.  This  has  not  been 
traced  to  any  foreign  source,  and  is  probably  of  native  inven- 
tion,—  a  circumstance  which  invests  it  with  some  interest,  as 
the  earliest  known  narrative  poem,  of  a  wholly  imaginative 
character,  conceived  in  the  native  tongue  after  the  Saxon 
period. 

It  is  a  dispute  between  an  owl  and  a  nightingale  concerning 
their  respective  powers  of  song.  The  smoothness  of  the  versifi- 
cation shows  a  practised  ear,  and  of  course  a  familiarity  with 
foreign  models,  for  English  verse  had  hardly  been  yet  cultivated 
extensively  enough  to  famish  the  requisite  training.  The 
vocabulary  contains  few  Norman  words,  but  many  of  Scandi- 
navian origin,  while  its  dialectic  peculiarities,  such  as  the  sub- 
stitution of  V  for  the  initial  /,  do  not  indicate  that  the  poem 
was  composed  in  a  northern  or  north-eastern  district.  The 
dialogue,  though  neither  elegant  nor  refined,  is  not  wanting  in 
spirit,  and  the  general  tone  of  the  composition  is  in  advance  of 
that  of  the  period  to  which  other  evidence,  internal  and  external, 
assigns  it. 

The  commencement  is  as  follows :  — 

Ich  was  in  one  sumere  dale. 

In  one  stithe  dijele  hale,' 

I-herde  ich  holde  grete  tale 

An  hule  and  one  nijtingale. 

That  plait  was  stif  and  stare  and  strong, 

Sum  wile  softe,  and  lud  among ; 


Sufhe  di^cle  hale,  very  retired  or  secret  hollow. 


206  THE   OWL   AND   THE   NIGHTINGALE  Lect.  V. 

An  aither  ajen  other  sval,* 
And  let  that  wole  '^  mod  ut  al. 
And  either  seide  of  otheres  custe* 
That  alre-worste  that  lii  wuste ; 
And  hure  and  hure  of  othere  sunge 
He  holde  plaiding  suthe  stronge. 

The  nijtingale  bi-gon  the  speche, 
In  one  hurne  "*  of  one  breche  ^ ; 
And  sat  upone  vaire  boje, 
Thar  were  abute  blosme  i-noje, 
In  ore®  waste  thicke  hegge, 
I-meind^  mid  spire  and  grene  segge, 
Ho  was  the  gladur  vor  the  rise,^ 
And  song  a  vele  cunne  wise  :  ^ 

Het  thujte  the  dreim  ^^  that  he  were 
Of  harpe  and  pipe,  than  he  nere, 
Bet  thujte  that  he  were  i-shoto 
Of  harpe  and  pipe  than  of  throte, 

Tho  stod  on  old  stoc  thar  bi-side, 
Thar  tho  ule  song  hire  tide, 
And  was  mid  ivi  al  bi-growe, 
Hit  was  thare  hule  earding-stowe.^^ 

The  nijtingale  hi  i-sej. 
And  hi  bi-hold  and  over-sej, 
An  thujte  wel  wl'^  of  thare  hule. 
For  me '3  hihalt  lodlich*^  and  fule  : 
"  Unwijt,"  ho  sede,  "  awey  thu  flo  ! 
Me  is  the  wrs^^  that  ich  the  so ; 
I- wis  for  thine  wle  lete  '^ 
Wel  oft  ich  mine  song  for-lete ; 
Min  horte  at-flith,  and  fait  mi  tonge, 
Thonne  thu  art  to  me  i-thrunge.^'' 

'  sval,  swelled  with  indignation.  ^  xnole,  evil.  ^  custe,  Icel.  kostr,  habits, 
character,  conditions.  *  hurne,  corner.  *  hrcche,  Coleridge  suggests  hcecli, 
here  beech-grove.  *  ore,  one,  a.  ''  i-mcind,  mingled.  *  rise,  branches. 
^  song  a  vde  cunne  wise,  probably,  sung  many  kinds  of  notes;  wise,  Ger.  Weise.  ^'^Het 
ihuite  the  dreim,  it  seemed  the  tone ;  Bet  thux^te,  it  seemed  rather.  "  carding- 
stowe,  dwelling-place.  '*  wl,  ill.  •'  me,  men,  Fr.  on.  "  lodlich,  loathsome. 
'*  wrs,  worse.         "  lete,  voice.        "  i-thrunge,  pressed  near. 


p 


Lect.  V.  THE    OWL   AND    THE   NIGHTINGALE  207 

Me  lust  bet'  spetcn,  thane  singe 
Of  thine  fule  jo^elinge.''^ 

Thos  hule  abod  fort  hit  was  eve, 
Ho  lie  mi'i.te  no  leng  bileve, 
Vor  hire  horte  was  so  gret, 
That  wel  nej  hire  fnast  ^  at-schet ; 
And  warp  a  word  thar  after  longe : 
"  IIu  thincthe  nu  bi  mine  songe  ? 
West  thu  that  ich  ne  cunne  singe, 
Thej  ich  ne  cunne  of  writehnge  ? 
I-lomC*  thu  dest  me  grame,^ 
And  seist  me  bothe  tone  ^  and  schame ; 
jif  ich  the  holde  on  mine  note,'^ 
So  hit  bi-tide  that  ich  mote  ! 
And  thu  were  ut  of  thine  rise, 
Thu  sholdest  singe  an  other  wse.'® 

After  much  reciprocal  abuse,  the  nightingale  bursts  into 
song. 

Thos  word  ajaf  the  nijtingale, 
And  after  thare  longe  tale 
He  song  so  lude  and  so  scharpe, 
Rijt  so  me  grulde  schille  harpe,^ 
Thos  hule  luste  thider-ward, 
And  hold  here  eje  nother-ward, 
And  sat  to-svolle  and  i-bolye,^° 
Also  ho  hadde  one  frogge  i-svol^e. 

The  birds  then  agree,  upon  the  proposal  of  the  nightingale 
to  refer  the  question  of  superiority  to  'Maister  Nichole  of 
Guldeforde,'  who 


He  is  of  dome  suthe  gleu,^^ 
And  him  is  loth  evrich  untheu ; 


^  me  lust  bet,   I  would  rather.  -  lo^clinge,  chattering.  ^  fnast,  breath. 

*  i-lomc,  often.  ^  gramc,  offence.  ®  tone,  pain,  wrong,  injury,  ^  note, 
power,  possession.  ^  wsc,  wise,  manner.  "  ri^t  so  me  grulde  schille  Jiarpe, 
as  if  one  were  touching  a  shrill  harp.         '°  i-holyc,  swollen.         "  gleu,  skilfuU. 


208  THE   OWL  AND   THE   NIGHTINGALE  Lect.  V. 

He  wot  insist  in  eche  songe, 
Wo  singet  wel,  wo  singet  wronge ; 
And  he  can  schede '  vrom  the  rijte 
That  W05e,2  that  thuster^  from  the  lijte. 

Before  repairing  to  the  arbiter,  however,  they  recommence 
their  dialogue,  and  the  poem  is  almost  entirely  taken  up  with 
their  abuse  of  each  other,  the  nightingale  beginning  the  dis- 
pute. 

*  Hule,'  ho  sede,  *  seie  me  soth, 

Wi  dostu  that  un-wijtis  doth  ? 

Thu  singist  a  nijt,  and  nojt  a  dai, 

And  al  thi  song  is  wailawai ; 

Thu  mijt  mid  thine  songe  afere 

AUe  that  i-hereth  thine  i-bere  ;  ^ 

Thu  schirchest  and  joUest  to  thine  fere* 

That  hit  is  grislich  to  i-here, 

Hit  thinchest  bothe  wise  and  snepe^ 

Nojt  that  thu  singe,  ac  that  thu  wepe. 

Thu  flijst  a  nijt  and  no^t  a  dai ; 

Tharof  ich  wndri,  and  wel  mai : 

Vor  evrich  thing  that  schuniet  rijt, 

Hit  luveth  thuster  and  hatiet  li^t.' 

The  owl  replies  much  in  the  same  strain,  and,  as  will  be 
seen  by  the  following  extracts,  the  tw^o  birds  continue  to  abuse 
each  other,  in  good  set  terms,  to  the  end  of  the  poem.  The 
owl :  — 

Thu  wenist  that  ech  song  bo^  grislich 

That  thine  pipinge  nis  i-Iich  : 

Mi  stefne*^  is  bold  and  nojt  un-orne,^ 

Ho  is  i-lich  one  grete  home, 

And  thin  is  i-lich  one  pipe 

Of  one  smale  wode  un-ripe. 

Ich  singe  bet  than  thu  dest ; 

Thu  chaterest  so  doth  on  Irish  preost ; 

'  schede,  distinguish.  *  ^o^e,  wrong.  '  thuster,  darkness.  *  i-here, 

voice.  *  fere,  mate.  "  snej^e^  foolish.  '  bo,  be.  *  stefne,  voice. 

•  un-orne,  rude. 


» 


Lrcr.  V.  THE   OWL  AND   THE   NIGHTINGALE  209 

Icli  singe  an  eve  a  ri^t  time, 
And  soththe  won  hit  is  bed-time, 
The  thridde  sithe  ad  middel  nijte, 
And  so  ich  mine  song  adijte 
Wone  ich  i-so  ^  arise  voire 
Other  dai-rim^  other  dai-sterre, 
Ich  do  god  mid  mine  throte, 
And  warne  men  to  hore  note.^ 
Ac  thu  singest  alle-longe  ni^t, 
From  eve  fort  hit  is  dai-Hjt, 
And  evre  seist  thin  o  song 
So  longe  so  the  nijt  is  long, 
And  evre  croweth  thi  -vvrecche  crei 
"^  That  he  ne  swiketh  night  ne  dai  ; 

Mid  thine  pipinge  thu  adunest* 
Thas  monnes  earen  thar  thu  Avunest, 
And  makest  thine  song  so  un-\vrth 
That  me  ne  telth  of  thar  no^t  wrth. 
Everich  murjtlie  mai  so  longe  i-leste, 
That  ho  shal  like  wel  un-wreste  ;  ^ 
Vor  harpe  and  pipe  and  fugeles  songe 
Misliketh,  jif  hit  is  to  long, 
Ne  bo  the  song  never  so  murie. 
That  he  shal  thinche  wel  un-murie, 
'  Zef  he  i-lesteth  over  un-wiUe.^ 

The  nightingale :  — 

*  Hule,'  ho  seide,  '  Avi  dostu  so  ? 
Thu  singest  a  winter  Avolawo  ; 
Thu  singest  so  doth  hen  a  snowe,^ 
Al  that  ho  singeth  hit  is  for  wowe ; 
Hit  is  for  thine  fule  nithe,*^ 
That  thu  ne  mijt  mid  us  bo  blithe. 
For  thu  forbernest^  wel  ne^  for  onde  ^'^ 
Than  ure  bhsse  cumeth  to-londe. 


*  i-so,  see.  ^  dai-rim,  day-hreak,  da'wn.  ^  note,  good,  benefit,  labour. 
*  adunest,  stunnest,  dinnest.  *  un-wrcste,  worthless.  ^  over  un-wille,  beyond 
what  is  desirable.  '  so  doth  hen  a  snowe,  like  a  hen  in  the  snow.  ^  nithe, 
envy.      ^  forhernest,  bxirnest.      '"  onde,  malice. 

P 


210  THE   OWL  AND   THE   NIGHTINGALE  Lect.  V. 

Thu  farest  so  doth  the  ille, 

Evrich  blisse  him  is  un-wille ; 

Grucching  and  luring  him  both  ^  rade,* 

Eif  he  i-soth  that  men  both  glade  ; 

He  wolde  that  he  i-seje 

Teres  in  evrich  monnes  e^e  : 

Ne  ro^te  he  the^  flockes  were 

I-meind  bi  toppes  and  bi  here.^ 

Al  so  thu  dost  on  thire  side  ; 

Vor  wanne  snou  lith  thicke  and  wide 

An  all  wijtes  habbeth  sorje, 

Tliu  singest  from  eve  fort  a  morje. 

Ac  ich  alle  blisse  mid  me  bringe ; 

Ech  wijt  is  glad  for  mine  thinge, 

And  blisseth  hit  wanne  ich  cume, 

And  hijteth  ajen  mine  cume. 

The  blostme  ginneth  springe  and  sprede 

Both  in  tro  and  eke  on  mede  ; 

The  lilie  mid  hire  faire  wlitc* 

Wolcumeth  me,  that  thu  hit  wte, 

Bid  me  mid  hire  faire  bio  ^ 

That  ich  shulle  to  hire  flo ;  ^ 

The  rose  also  mid  hire  rude, 

That  cumeth  ut  of  the  thorne  wode, 

Bit  me  that  ich  shulle  singe 

Vor  hire  luve  one  skentinge.^ 

The  owl:  — 

Wi  nultu  singe  an  oder  theode,^ 
War  hit  is  muchele  more  neode  ? 
Thu  neaver  ne  singst  in  Irlonde, 
Ne  thu  ne  cumest  nojt  in  Scotlonde : 
Wi  nultu  fare  to  Noreweie  ? 
And  singin  men  of  Galeweie  ? 
Thar  beodh  men  that  lutel  kunne 
Of  songe  that  is  bineodhe  the  sunne ; 

»  both,  heeth,  is.        ^  rade,  ready,  present.         '  flocJccs  *  ^    i-meind  bi  toppes 
and  by  here,  companies  *  *  quarrelling   and  piilling   hair.  "  wlite,  colour. 

*  bio,  bleo,  blee,  colour.         «  jlo,  flee.        '  skentinge,  a  merry  song.         «  theode, 
place,  people. 


Lect.  V.  THE  GESTE  OF  KYNG  HORN  211 

Wi  nultu  tliare  preoste  singe, 
An  teche  of  tliire  writelinge  ? 
And  wisi  ^  horn  mid  tliire  stevene, 
The  engeles  singeth  ine  heovene  ? 
Thu  farest  so  dodh  an  ydel  wel, 
That  springeth  bi  bume  thar  is  snel,^ 
An  let  for-drue^  the  dune,"* 
And  floh  on  idel  thar  a-dune. 

The  disputants  become  irritated,  and  are  about  to  proceed  to 
violence,  when  the  wren,  who 

for  heo  cuthe  singe, 
War  com  in  thare  morejeiing, 
To  helpe  thare  ni^tegale, 

interferes,  reminds  the  parties  of  their  agreement  to  refer  their 
differences  to  an  arbiter,  and  sends  them  to  abide  his  judgment. 
The  poem  concludes  :  — 

Mid  thisse  worde  forth  hi  ferden, 
Al  bute  here  and  bute  verde,^ 
To  Portersham  that  heo  bi-come ; 
Ah  hu  heo  spedde  of  heore  dome 
Ne  chan  ich  eu  namore  telle  ; 
Her  nis  namore  of  this  spelle. 

The  Geste  of  Kyng  Horn,  a  romantic'  poem  of  about  sixteen 
hundred  verses,  belongs  to  the  thirteenth  century,  and  has  not 
been  traced  to  a  foreign  original ;  but  the  existence  of  nearly 
contemporaneous  versions  of  the  same  story,  in  French  and 
other  languages,  renders  it  highly  probable  that  the  first  con- 
ception of  the  poem  was  of  a  much  earlier  date. 

The  following  is  a  condensed  outline  of  the  plan.  King 
Murray,  the  father  of  Horn,  the  hero  of  the  tale,  is  defeated 
and  slain  by  heathen,  or,  as  the   poet  calls  them,  Saracen, 

^  wisi,   show,  teach.         ^  g^^^l,  s^vift.  '  for-drue,    dry-up,  *  dujic,   the 

heath.        *  Al  bute  here  and  bute  verde,  without  army  and  troops,   that  is  withqut 
followers  or  retinue. 

F  2 


212 


THE   GESTE   OF   KTNG   HOKN 


I.ECT.    V. 


vikings,  from  Denmark,  who  seize  Horn,  and  put  to  death  all 
his  countrymen,  except  such  as  consent  to  renounce  Christianity. 
Horn  is  compelled  to  put  to  sea  in  a  small  boat,  with  several 
companions,  and  lands  in  Westernesse,  where  he  is  hospitably 
received  by  King  Aylmer,  is  carefully  educated  in  all  the 
accomplishments  of  a  page,  and  excites  a  strong  passion  in  the 
breast  of  Eimenhild,  the  only  daughter  of  the  King. 

After  being  dubbed  knight,  he  departs  in  quest  of  adventures, 
and,  aided  by  a  magic  ring  given  him  by  the  princess,  he  defeats 
a  party  of  Saracen  vikings,  and  carries  the  head  of  the  chief  to 
King  Aylmer,  but  is  exiled  by  that  prince,  who  is  not  disposed 
to  favour  his  love  for  Eimenhild.  On  taking  leave  of  his  mis- 
tress, he  begs  her  to  wait  seven  years  for  his  return,  and  gives 
her  liberty  to  accept  the  hand  of  another  suitor  unless  she  has 
a  satisfactory  account  of  him  within  that  period.  During  his 
absence,  he  meets  with  a  variety  of  adventures,  but  is  finally 
sent  for  by  Eimenhild,  and  arrives  in  time  to  rescue  her 
from  King  Modi,  who  is  pressing  for  her  hand,  and  Horn  and 
Eimenhild  are  married.  After  the  marriage,  he  goes  with  a 
troop  of  Irish  soldiery  to  Suddene,  his  native  land,  which  he 
recovers  from  the  infidels.  He  finds  his  mother,  who  had  con- 
cealed herself  in  a  cave  at  the  time  of  his  capture,  still  alive, 
and  returns  to  Westernesse.  During  his  absence,  his  false 
friend  Fykenild,  who  had  occasioned  his  former  banishment, 
had  got  possession  of  Eimenhild,  and  was  trying  to  compel  her 
to  consent  to  a  marriage  wdth  him.  Horn  enters  Fykenild's 
castle  in  the  disguise  of  a  harper,  kills  the  traitor,  and  recovers 
his  wife.     The  poem  commences  thus :  — 

Alle  beon  he  bli))e, 
pat  to  my  song  lyjje  : 
A  sang  ihc  schal  jou  singe 
Of  Murry  J)e  kinge. 
King  he  was  bi  weste 
So  longe  so  hit  laste. 
Godhild  het  his  quen ; 
Faire  no  mi^te  non  ben. 


Lkct.  V.  THE    GESTE    OF   KYNG   IIOHN  213 

He  hadde  a  sone,  ])at  het  Horn ; 
Fairer  ne  mijte  non  beo  born, 
Ne  no  rein  upon  birine, 
IsTe  sunne  upon  bischine ; 
Fairer  nis  non  Jiane  lie  was, 
He  was  so  brijt  so  fe  glas ; 
He  was  wliit  so  J)e  fiur, 
Rose  red  was  his  colur. 
He  was  feyr  and  eke  bold. 
Ant  of  fiftene  wynter  old. 
In  none  kinge  riclie 
Nas  non  liis  iliche. 
Twelf  feren  lie  liadde 
pat  alle  with  hem  ladde ; 
AUe  riche  mannes  sones, 
And  alle  hi  were  faire  gomes; 
Wif  him  for  to  pleie  : 
And  mest  he  luvede  tweie, 
pat  on  him  het  Ha]>ulf  child. 
And  ]>at  oj^er  Fykenild. 
Aj?ulf  was  ]?e  beste, 
And  Fikenylde  ]>e  werste. 

When  Horn  lands  from  the  boat  into  which  he  had  been  driven 
to  embark  by  the  heathen  pirates,  he  takes  leave  of  it  with  this 
benediction ;  — 

Schup,  bi  ])e  se  flode 
>     Dales  have  J^u  gode ; 
Bi  J>e  se  brinke 
No  water  ])e  nadrinke. 
5ef  J>u  cume  to  Suddene, 
Gret  J)u  wel  of  myne  kenne ; 
Gret  ]>u  wel  my  moder, 
Godhild  quen  J?e  gode  ; 
And  seie  ]7e  paene  kyng, 
Jesu  Cristes  wijjering, 
pat  ihc  am  hoi  and  fer, 
On  this  lond  arived  her; 
And  seie  fat  hei  schal  fonde 
pe  dent  of  myne  honde. 


214  THE   GESTE   OF   KYNG   HORN  Lecf.  V. 

King  Aylmer  meets  Horn  and  his  companions  soon  after  they 
land,  and,  after  hearing  their  story,  conducts  them  to  the 
palace,  and  gives  them  into  the  charge  of  his  steward  AJ^elbrus, 
with  these  instructions : — 

Stiward,  tak  nu  here 

Mi  fundlyng,,  for  to  lere 

Of  j)ine  mestere, 

Of  wude  and  of  rivere ; 

And  tech  him  to  harpe 

"WiJ)  his  nayles  scharpe ; 

Bivore  me  to  kerve, 

And  of  ]>e  cupe  serve ; 

pu  tech  him  of  alle  ]>e  liste 

pot  ]>u  evre  of  wiste; 

In  his  feiren  ]70U  wise 

Into  oJ?ere  servise. 

Horn  J)u  undervonge, 

And  tech  him  of  harpe  and  songe. 

At  his  parting  from  Eimenhild,  she  gives  him  a  ring,  with  these 

words :  — 

*  Knijt,'  qua]?  heo,  '  trewe, 

Ihc  mene  ihc  mei  ]>e  leue.^ 

Tak  nu  her  bis  gold  ring, 

God  him  is  fe  dubbing.^ 

per  is  upon  ]>e  ringe 

I-grave  Eymenhild  ]>e  jonge ; 

per  nis  non  betere  an  onder  sunne, 

pat  eni  men  of  telle  cunne. 

For  mi  luve  fu  hit  were, 

And  on  ]?i  finger  pn  him  here, 

pe  stones  beo]?  of  such  grace, 

pet  pu  ne  schalt  in  none  place 

Of  none  duntes^  beon  of  drad, 

Ne  on  bataille  beon  amad,* 

Ef  ]>u  loke  ]?er  an, 

And  ])enke  upon  ]>i  lemman. 

.  '  hue,  lere,  believe.  '  dubbing,  finishing,  or  setting,  or  perhaps  it  refers  to 
the  device  engraved  upon  the  stone,  or  the  magic  powers  conferred  upon  it. 
'  f^Mw^fs,  dints,  blows.        *  amad,  dismayed. 


Lect.  V.  TEE   GESTE   OF   KYNG  HORN  215 

The  Geste  of  Kyng  Horn  has  very  little  merit  as  a  poem,  and  it  is 
far  from  possessing  the  philological  importance  which  has  sometimes 
been  ascribed  to  it.  There  are,  however,  besides  the  words  explained 
in  the  preceding  notes',  a  few  vocables  and  combinations  which  deserve 
notice,  because,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  they  are  not  found  in  any  earlier 
English  work.     Thus,  alone  occurs  in  its  primitive  form  in  verse  626 :  — 

po  gunne  ])e  hundes  gone 
Abute  Horn  al  one} 

But  in  verses  861  and  1055  it  is  written,  as  at  present,  alone;  and 
in  verse  539  we  find  the  more  ancient  simple  one,  used  without  the 
all :  — 

Nolde  he  nojt  go  one, 

Afulf  was  his  mone. 

At  one,  the  probable  origin  of  the  modern  verb  to  atone,  which  is 
supposed  to  be  not  older  than  the  sixteenth  century,  appears  in  the 
verse  953 :  — 

At  on  he  was  wi)>  ]>e  king 
Of  fat  ilke  wedding. 

There  is,  in  couplet  545,  546,  a  singular  compound  rhyme,  which  I 
have  not  observed  in  any  other  poem  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
which,  though  a  departure  from  t?ie  laws  of  harmonious  consonance, 
seems  to  have  been  a  favourite  with  old  English  poets,  for  it  is  several 
times  employed  by  Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Occleve  :  — 
Knijt,  nu  is  J)i  time 
For  to  sitte  bt  me. 

The  French  words,  counting  repetitions,  constitute  about  two  per 
cent,  of  the  vocabulary,  and  they  are  principally  from  the  secular  litera- 
ture of  the  Continent.  The  Scandinavian  words  are  few.  The  meaning 
and  Northern  origin  of  one  of  them, /er,  v.  155,  appear  to  have  escaped 
the  glossarists.  It  is  evidently  the  Danish  for,  Icel.  foerr,  which  the 
Scandinavian  etymologists  refer  to  the  verb  at  far  a,  the  primitive  mean- 
ing being  able  to  walk,  active.  The  more  modern  sense  is  strong,  ivell, 
and  in  the  passage  cited,  liol  and  fer  evidently  signifies  safe  and  sound. 
Boy,  a  word  for  which  no  satisfactory  etymology  has  been  suggested, 
occurs  in  verse  1107,  but  as  it  is  applied  to  the  porter  of  a  castle,  it  is 
used  rather  in  the  Irish,  than  in  the  modem  English  sense.* 

*  See  on  the  word  alone,  First  Series,  Appendix,  p,  696,  also  Lecture  XL,  post. 

*■  I  regret  to  say  that,  with  every  possible  effort,  I  have  been  unable  to  procure 

a  copy  of  Havelok  the  Dane,  and  I  prefer  rather  to  omit  all  notice  of  it  than  to 


216  THE   SURTEES   PSALTER  Leci.  V. 

Another  interesting  production  of  the  period  under  consider- 
ation is  the  metrical  version  of  the  psalms,  published  by  the 
Surtees  Society.  The  date  of  this  translation  is  unknown,  but 
it  can  hardly  be  later  than  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
though  I  believe  no  manuscript  copy  older  than  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Edward  II.  is  known  to  exist.  Its  diction  resembles 
in  many  respects  the  dialect  of  the  Owl  and  the  Nightingale, 
but  an  important  grammatical  distinction  is  that  it  generally 
uses  the  Danish  plural  ere  instead  of  hen,  beth  or  beoth,  and 
another  is  that  for* the  Anglo-Saxon  ending  of  the  verb  in  -4h,m 
the  indicative  present,  third  person  singular,  and  all  persons  of 
the  plural,  as  also  in  the  imperative,  it  substitutes  s.  Chaucer 
employs  this  form  in  the  Eeeves  Tale,  as  a  peculiarity  of  the 
speech  of  two  persons  from  the  North  of  England :  — 

Of  o  toun  were  they  born  that  liighte  Strothir, 
Fer  in  the  North, 

and  it  has  sometimes  been  said  to  characterise  the  dialects  of 
districts  where  the  Scandinavian  element  is  most  perceptible. 
But  it  is  highly  improbable  that  this  change  is  due  to  Danish 
influence  ;  for  the  Danes  did  not  make  the  corresponding  inflec- 
tions of  their  own  verb  in  s,  and,  though  what  is  absurdly  called 
the  hard  sound  of  th  (as  in  iliinh)  is  extinct  in  the  normal  pro- 
nunciation of  Danish,  yet  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  it 
became  so  until  long  after  the  last  Danish  invasion  of  England. 
The  origin  of  the  new  form  is  obscure,  and  at  present  not 
historically  demonstrable,  but  it  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the 
difficulty  of  the  pronunciation  of  the  th.  The  substantive  verb 
to  be,  which  occurs  more  frequently  than  any  other  verb,  had 
always  the  third  person  singular,  indicative  present  and  past,  in 
s,  for  is  and  woes  were  used  in  Anglo-Saxon  just  as  they  are 
now.     The  Normans  could  not  pronounce  th,  and  in  attempting 

borrow  an  account  of  it  at  second  hand.  The  extracts  I  have  seen  do  not  lead 
me  to  concur  in  the  opinions  which  have  been  sometimes  expressed  concerning 
the  high  philological  importance  of  this  work. 


Lkct.  V.  THE   SURTEES   PSALTER  217 

it,  a  Frenchman  gives  it  the  s  or  rather  z  sound  which  s  most 
usually  has  as  a  verbal  ending.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  not 
improbable,  that  this  Norman-French  error  in  articulation, 
combined  with  the  fact  that  the  most  important  of  all  verbs,  the 
verb  to  be,  already  employed  s  as  the  ending  of  the  third  per- 
son singular,  occasioned  its  general  adoption  as  the  characteristic 
of  that  inflection.* 

I  select  as  a  specimen  of  this  translation.  Psalm  CII.  (CIII. 
of  the  standard  English  version),  and,  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
parisons which  I  leave  the  student  to  make  for  himself,  I 
accompany  this  text,  numbered  3,  with  1,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
metrical  version;  2,  the  older  Wycliffite,  or  Hereford's,  prose 
translation ;  4,  the  Latin,  from  the  Surtees  Psalter ;  and  5,  a 
French  prose  translation,  of  the  twelfth  century,  published  by 
F.  Michel  in  1860. 

I. 

1.  Bletsa,   mine   sawle,   bliSe   drihten; 

2.  Blesse   thou,  my  soule,    to   the  Lord; 

3.  Blisse,  my  saule,  to  Laverd  ai  isse ; 

4.  Benedic,  anima  mea,  Dominum ; 

5.  Beneis,  la  meie  aneme,  a  nostre  Scgnor; 

1.  and  eall  min  inneran  his  ))£ene  ecean  naman  ! 

2.  and  all  tliingus  that  withinne  me  ben,  to  his  holi  name  ! 

3.  And  alle  J?at  with  in  me  ere,  to  hali  name  hisse  ! 

4.  et  omnia  interiora  mea  nomen  sanctum  ejus  ! 

5.  e  tres-tutes  les  coses  qui  dedenz  mei  sunt,  al  saint  num  de  lui  1 

11. 

1.  Bletsige,  mine  sawle,  bealde  dryhten  ! 

2.  Blesse  thou,  my  soule,  to  the  Lord ! 

3.  Blisse,  mi  saul,  to  Laverd,  of  alle  thinges ! 

4.  Benedic,  anima  mea,  Dominum  ! 

5.  Beneis,  la  meie  aneme,  a  nostre  Segnor  I 

1.  ne  wylt  fu  ofergeottul  ffifre  weorSan. 

2.  and  wile  thou  not  forjete  alle  the  jeldingus  of  him. 

3.  And  nil  for-gete  alle  his  for-yheldinges. 

4.  et  noli  oblivisci  omnes  retributiones  ejus. 

5.  e  ne  voilles  oblier  tutes  les  gueredunances  de  lui. 

*  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  Lecture. 


218  THE   SUIITEES   PSALTER  Lr.CT.  V. 


m. 

1.  He  ]>inum  mandasdum  miltsade  eallum  ; 

2.  That  hath  mercy  to  alle  thi  wickidnessis ; 

3.  pat  winsomes  to  alle  ]nne  wickenesses  ; 

4.  Qui  propitius  fit  omnibus  iniquitatibus  tuis ; 

5.  Chi  at  merci  de  tutes  les  tues  iniquitez  ; 

1.  and  J)ine  adle  ealle  gehaelde. 

2.  that  helith  alle  thin  infirmytees. 

3.  J^at  heles  alle  J)ine  sekenesses. 

4.  qui  sanat  omnes  languores  tuos. 

5.  chi  sained  trestutes  les  tues  enfermetez. 

IV. 

1.  He  alysde  |>,in  lif  leof  of  forwyrde; 

2.  That  a^een  bieth  fro  deth  thi  lif; 

3.  J'at  bies  fra  sterving  ])i  life  derli ; 

4.  Qui  redemit  de  interitu  vitam  tuam ; 

5.  Chi  racated  de  mort  la  tue  vie  ; 

1.  fylde  f  inne  willan  fsegere  mid  gode. 

2.  that  crouneth  thee  in  mercy  and  mercy  doingis. 

3.  fat  crounes  pe  with  rew]?es  and  with  merci. 

4.  qui  coronat  te  in  miseratione  et  misericordia. 

5.  chi  coruned  tei  en  misericorde  e  miseraciuns. 


1.  He  J)e  gesigefceste  soSre  miltse 

and  J?e  mildheorte  mode  getrymede ; 

2.  That  fulfiUeth  in  goode  thingus  thi  diseyi' ;     . 

3.  Ipat  filles  in  godes  ])i  yherninges  al ; 

4.  Qui  satiat  in  bonis  desiderium  tuum  ; 

5.  Chi  raemplist  en  bones  coses  le  tuen  desiderie ; 

1.  eart  |>u  eadnowe  earne  gelicast 
on  geoguSe  nu  gleawe  geworden. 

2.  shal  be  renewid  as  of  an  egle  thij  outhe. 

3.  Als  erne  J»i  yhouthe  be  newed  sal. 

4.  renovabitur  sic  ut  aquilae  juventus  tua. 

5.  sera  renovee  sicume  d'aigle  la  tue  juvente. 


Lect.  V.  THE   SURTEES   PSALTER  219 


VI. 

1.  Hafast  ])U  milde  mod,  milita  strange 
drihten, 

2.  Doende  mercies  the  Lord, 

3.  Doand  mercies  Laverd  in  land, 

4.  Faciens  misericordias  Dominus, 

5.  Faisanz  misericordes  nostre  Sire, 

1.  domas  eallum  ]>e  deope  her 
and  ful  treaflice  teonan  ])olian. 

2.  and  dom  to  alle  men  suffrende  wrong. 

3.  And  dome  til  allc  un-riglit  tholand. 

4.  et  judicium  omnibus  injuriam  patientibus. 

5.  e  jugement  a  tuz  torceunerie  sufFranz. 

VII. 

1.  He  his  wegas  dyde  wise  and  cuSe 
Moyse  ]>am  masran  on  masnige  tid  ; 

2.  Knowen  he  made  his  weies  to  Moises; 

3.  Konthe  made  he  to  Moises  his  waies  wele  ; 

4.  Notas  fecit  vias  suas  Moysi ; 

5.  Cuneudes  fist  les  sues  veies  a  Moysen  ; 

1.  swylce  his  willan  eac  werum  Israhela. 

2.  and  to  the  sones  of  Irael  his  willis.  .     , 

3.  His  willes  til  sones  of  Irael. 

4.  filiis  Israhel  voluntates  suas. 

5.  as  fils  Israel  ses  voluntez. 

VIII. 

1.  Mildheort  ))U  eart  and  mihtig,  mode  ge])yldig, 
ece  dryhten,  swa  J>u  a  wasre, 

2.  Eeewere  and  merciful  the  Lord, 

3.  Rew-ful  and  milde-herted  Laverd  gode, 

4.  Misericors  et  miserator  Dominus, 

5.  Merciere  e  merciable  nostre  Sire, 

1.  is  pin  milde  mod  mannum  cySed, 

2.  long  abidende  and  myche  merciful. 

3.  And  milde-herted  and  lang-mode. 

4.  patiens  et  multum  misericors. 

5.  pacient  e  mult  merciable. 


220  THE  SUBTEES  PSALTER  Lect.  V. 


IX. 


1.  Nelle  ])u  08  ende  yrre  habban, 

2.  In  to  euermore  he  shal  not  wrathen, 

3.  Noghte  wreth  he  sal  in  evermore, 

4.  Non  in  finem  irascitur, 

5.  Neient  en  parmanableted  iraistra, 

1.  ne  on  ecnesse  fe  awa  belgan. 

2.  ne  in  to  withoute  ende  he  shal  threte. 

3.  Ne  in  ai  sal  he  threte  ]7ar-fore. 

4.  neque  in  setemum  indignabitur. 

5.  ne  en  pardurableted  ne  manacera. 


1.  Na  ])u  be  gewyrhtum,  wealdend,  urum 
wommum  wyrhtum  woldest  us  don, 

2.  Aftir  oure  synnes  he  dide  not  to  vs, 

3.  Noght  after  our  sinnes  dide  he  til  us, 

4.  Non  secundum  peccata  nostra  fecit  nobis, 

5.  Neient  sulunc  les  noz  pecchez  fist  a  nus, 

1.  ne  sefter  urum  unryhte  awhajr  gy Idan. 

2.  ne  aftir  oure  wickidnessis  he  jelde  to  us. 

3.  Ne  after  our  wickenes  for-yheld  us  J>us. 

4.  neque  secundum  iniquitates  nostras  retribuit  nobis. 

5.  ne  sulunc  les  noz  iniquitez  ne  regueredunad  a  nus. 

XI. 

1.  ror])on  ])u  Eefter  heahweorce  heofenes  fines  : 
mildheortnysse  mihtig  drihten, 

2.  For  after  the  heijte  of  heuene  fro  erthe,  ; 

3.  For  after  heghnes  of  heven  fra  land, 

4.  Quia  secundum  altitudinem  cccli  a  terra. 

5.  Kar  sulunc  la  haltece  del  ciel  de  la  terre, 

1.  lustum  cySdest  ])am  fe  lufedon  'pe. 

2.  he  strengthide  his  mercy  vpon  men  dredende  hym. 

3.  Strenghjjed  he  his  merci  over  him  dredand. 

4.  confirmavit  Dominus  misericordiam  suam  super  timentes  eum. 

5.  esfor9ad  la  sue  misericorde  sur  les  cremanz  sei. 


Lect.   V.  THE   SUETEES  PSALTER  221 


xn. 

1.  Swa  ))as  foldan  fasdme  bewinde'S, 
J)es  eastrodor  and  sefter  west, 

2.  Hou  myche  the  rising  stant  fro  the  going  doun, 

3.  How  mikle  est  del  stand  west  del  fra, 

4.  Quantum  distat  oriens  ab  occasu, 

5.  Cumbien  desestait  li  naissemenz  del  dechedement, 

1.  He  betweonan  fam  teonan  and  unriht 
us  fram  afyrde  a^ghwa}r  symble, 

2.  aferr  he  made  fro  vs  oure  wickidnessis, 

3.  Fer  made  he  fra  us  oure  wickenes  swa. 

4.  elongavit  a  nobis  iniquitates  nostras. 

5.  luinz  fist  de  nus  les  noz  felunies. 

XHI. 

1.  Swa  feeder  j^enceS  fjEgere  his  bearnum 
milde  weordan, 

2.  What  maner  wise  the  fader  hath  mercy  of  the  sonua, 

3.  Als  rewed  es  fadre  of  sones, 

4.  Sic  ut  miseretur  pater  filiis, 

5.  Cum  faitement  at  merci  li  pere  des  filz, 

1.  swa  us  mihtig  god 
])am  f  e  hine  lufiaS,  liSe  weorSeS. 

2.  the  Lord  dide  mercy  to  men  dredende  hym; 

3.  Rewed  es  Laverd,  ]>are  he  wones, 

4.  Ita  misertus  est  Dominus 

5.  merci  ad  li  Sire 

3.  Of  ]?a  fat  him  dredand  be  ; 

4.  timentibus  se ; 

5.  des  cremanz  sei ; 

XIV. 

1.  for]jan  he  calle  can  ure  ];earfe. 

2.  for  he  knew  oure  britil  making. 

3.  Fore  our  schaft  wele  knawes  he. 

4.  Quia  ipse  scit  figmentum  nostrum, 

5.  kar  11  conut  la  nostre  faiture. 


222  THE   SURTEES  PSALTER  Lect.  V. 

1.  Gemune,  militig  god,    past  we  synt  moldan  and  dust; 

2.  He  recordide  for  pouder  wee  be, 

3.  Mined  es  he  wele  in  thoght 

4.  Memento  Domine 

5.  Recorda  * 

3.  fat  dust  ere  we  and  worth  noght, 

4.  quod  pulvis  sumus, 

5.  qui  nus  sumes  puldre  ; 

XV. 

1.  beot5  mannes  dagas  mawenum  hego 
seghwer  anlice, 

2.  a  man  as  hey  his  dajes, 

3.  Man  his  daies  ere  als  hai, 

4.  homo  sic  ut  fajnum  dies  ejus, 

5.  huem  sicume  fain  li  jurz  de  lui, 

1.  eorSan  blostman 
swa  his  lifdages  lajne  syndan. 

2.  as  the  flour  of  the  feld  so  he  shal  floure  out, 

3.  Als  blome  of  felde  sal  he  welyen  awa. 

4.  et  sic  ut  flos  agri,  ita  floriet. 

5.  ensement  cume  la  flur  del  camp,  issi  flurira. 

XVI. 

1.  ponne  he  gast  ofgifeS, 

2.  For  the  spirit  shal  thurj  passen  in  hym, 
,  3.  For  gaste  thurgh-fare  in  him  it  sal, 

4.  Quia  spiritus  pertransiit  ab  eo, 

5.  Kar  li  espiriz  trespassera  en  lui 

1.  sytSSan  hine  gaersbedd  sceal 
wunian  wide-fyrhS, 

2.  and  he  shal  not  stonde  stille ; 

3.  And  noght  undre- stand  he  sal  with-al, 

4.  et  non  erit. 

5.  e  ne  parmaindra. 

1.  ne  him  man  sySSan  wset 
ajghwer  elles  senige  stowe. 

2.  and  he  shal  no  more  knowen  his  place. 

3.  And  knawe  na-mare  sal  he 

4.  et  non  cognoscit  amplius 

5.  e  ne  cunuistra  ampleis 


liECT.  V.  THE   tsURTEL'S   PSALTER  223 

3.  His  stede,  where  |?at  it  sal  be. 

4.  locum  suum. 

5.  sun  liu. 

XVII. 

1.  J)in  mildheortnes,  mihtig  drihten, 

purli  ealra  worulda  woruld  wislic  stande^, 

2.  The  mercy  forsothe  of  the  Lord  fro  withoute  ende, 
Q.  And  Laverdes  merci  evre  dwelland, 

4.  Misericordia  autem  Domini  a  saeculo  est, 

5.  Mais  la  misericorde  nostre  Segnur  de  parmanableted, 

1.  deorust  and  gedefust  ofer  ealle  J)a  fe  ondraedaS  him, 

2.  and  vnto  withoute  ende,  vpon  men  dredende  hym. 

3.  And  til  ai  our  him  dredand. 

4.  et  usque  in  sa?culum  sajculi  super  timentes  eum. 

5.  e  desque  en  parmanableted  sur  les  cremanz  lui. 

1.  Swa  his  soc5fa?stnyss  swylce  standeS 
ofer  ])ara  bearna  beam, 

2.  And  the  ri;^twisnesse  of  hym  in  to  the  sones  of  sones, 

3.  And  in  sones  of  sones  his  riglitwisenes, 

4.  et  justitia  ejus  super  filios  filiorum, 

5.  e  la  justise  de  lui  es  filz  des  filz, 

XVIII. 

1.  pe  his  bebodu  healda'5  ; 

2.  to  hem  that  kepen  his  testament. 

3.  To  |)as  pat  yhemes  wite-word  his  ; 

4.  custodientibus         testamentum  ejus ; 

5.  a  icels  chi  guardent  le  testament  de  lui ; 

1.  and  ]>a3S  gemynde  mycle  habbaS 

2.  And  myndeful  thei  ben 

3.  And  mined  sal  ])ai  be,  night  and  dai, 

4.  et  memoria  retinentibus 

5.  e  remembreur  sunt 

1.  pat  heo  his  wisfa^st  word  wynnura  efnan. 

2.  of  his  maundemens,  to  do  theni. 

3.  Of  his  bodes  to  do  pani  hi- 

4.  mandata  ejus  ut  faciani  ea. 

5.  des  cumandemenz  de  lui  medesme,  a  faire  les. 


224  THE   SURTEES  PSALTER  Lect.  V. 


XIX. 

1.  On  lieofonhame  halig  drihten 

his  healisetl  hror  timbrade,  , 

2.  The  Lord  in  heuene  made  redi  his  sete,  * 

3.  Laverd  in  heven  graij^ed  sete  his, 

4.  Dominus  in  coelo  paravit  sedem  suam, 

5.  Li  Sire  el  ciel  aprestad  sun  siege, 

1.  J)anon  he  eorSricum  eallum  wealde^. 

2.  and  his  reume  to  alle  shal  lordshipen. 

3.  And  his  rike  til  alle  sal  Laverd  in  blis. 

4.  et  regnum  ejus  omnium  dominabitur. 

5.  e  le  regne  de  lui-medesme  a  tutes  choses  segnurerad. 

XX. 

1.  Ealle  his  englas  ecne  drihten 
bletsian  bealde, 

2.  Blisse  gee  to  the  Lord,  alle  his  aungelis, 

3.  Blisses  to  Laverd  with  alle  your  might, 

4.  Benedicite  Dominum, 

5.  Beneiseiz  le  Segnor, 

3.  Alle  his  aungels  ]7at  ere  bright ; 

4.  omnes  angeli  ejus  ; 

5.  tuit  li  angele  de  lui ; 

1.  heora  bliSne  frean 
laxgyn  and  mihta  ]>a  his  mcere  word, 
habbaS  and  healdaS  and  hyge  fremmat5, 

2.  mijti  bi  vertue  doende  the  Avoord  of  hym, 

3.  Mightand  of  thew,  doand  his  worde  swa, 

4.  potentes  virtute,  qui  facitis  verbum  ejus, 

5.  poanz  par  vertud,  faisanz  la  parole  de  lui, 

1.  [wanting  in  Anglo-Saxon  text] 

2.  to  ben  herd  the  vois  of  his  sermounes, 

3.  To  here  steven  or  ms  sagns  ma. 

4.  ad  audiendum  vocem  sermumuTi  ejus. 

5.  a  oir  la  voiz  de  ses  sennotm 


I 


Lect.  V.  THE   SURTEES  PSALTER  225 


XXI. 

1.  Bletslan  drihten  eal  his  bearna  maegen, 

2.  Blessith  to  tlie  Lord  all  jee  his  vertues, 

3.  Blisses  to  Laverd,  alle  mightes  his, 

4.  Benedicite  Dominum,  omnes  virtutes  ejus, 

5.  Beneisseiz  al  Segnor,  tutes  les  vertuz  de  lui, 

1.  and  his  ]?egna  ]?reat,  pe  ]?a;t  ])ence  nu, 
pset  hi  his  willan  wyrcean  georne. 

2.  ^ee  his  seruauns  that  don  his  wil. 

3.  His  hine  })at  does  Jjat  his  wille  is. 

4.  Ministri  ejus  qui  facitis  voluntatem  ejus. 

5.  li  suen  ministre,  chi  faites  la  voluntad  de  lui. 

XXII. 

1.  Eall  his  agen  geweorc  ecne  drihten 
on  his  agenum  stede  eac  bletsige, 

2.  Blessith  to  the  Lord,  alle  ^ee  his  werlds. 

3.  Blisses  Laverd,  with  wille  and  thoght, 

4.  Benedicite  Dominum, 

5.  Beneisseiz  le  Segnur, 

3.  Alle  ]?e  Averkes  fat  he  wroght. 

4.  omnia  opera  ejus. 

5.  trestutes  les  ovres  de  lui. 


1.  peer  him  his  egsa  anweald  standetJ. 

2.  in  alle  place  ^ee  his  domynaciouns. 

3.  In  alle  stedes  of  his  laverdshipe  ma, 

4.  in  omni  loco  dominationis  ejus. 

5.  en  chescun  liu  de  la  sue  dominaciun. 

1.  Bletsige  min  sawl  bliSe  drihten  ! 

2.  blesse  thou,  my  soule,  to  the  Lord ! 

3.  Blisse,  mi  saule,  ai  Laverd  swa  ! 

4.  benedic,  anima  mea,  Dominum ! 

5.  beneis,  la  meie  aneme,  al  Segnor  I 

The  only  remark  I  think  it  necessary  to  make  on  the  grammar  of 
this  psalm  is  that  the  phrase,  man  his  dates,  in  verse  xv.,  where  his 

Q 


226  BICHARD   CCEUR   DE   LION  Lect.  V. 

serves  as  a  possessive  sign,  is  evidently  a  literal  translation  from  the 
Latin  homo  *  *  dies  ejus.  The  origin  of  this  anomalous  form  in 
Layamon  may  perhaps  be  traced  to  a  similar  source.  It  should  be 
added  that  the  translators  have  often  followed  different  texts  of  their 
original. 

A  circumstance  which  shows  the  continued  poverty  of  English 
intellect  in  the  thirteenth  centpry,  its  want  of  nationality,  and 
its  incapacity  for  original  composition,  is  that,  while  it  produced 
numerous  translations  of  French  authors,  and  revived  old-world 
fables  of  domestic  growth,  it  gave  birth  to  no  considerable  work 
connected  with  the  real  history  of  England,  except  the  chronicle 
of  Eobert  of  Gloucester.  We  can  hardly  imagine  a  finer  subject 
in  itself,  or  one  which  appealed  more  powerfully  to  the  sympa- 
thies and  prejudices  of  the  time,  and  especially  to  the  national 
pride  of  Englishmen,  if  any  such  were  felt,  than  the  crusades  of 
Eichard  Coeur  de  Lion ;  and  it  would  infallibly  have  inspired 
poetry,  if,  in  an  age  when  tales  of  wild  adventure  were  so 
popular,  any  poetical  genius  had  existed  in  the  people.  I  can- 
not find,  however,  that,  at  that  period,  the  exploits  of  Richard 
had  been  made  the  subject  of  any  original  English  poem,  and 
the  only  early  work  we  have  on  the  subject,  in  an  English  dress, 
belongs  to  the  following  century,  and  is  avowedly  translated 
from  the  French. 

It  appears,  however,  that  Joseph  of  Exeter,  a  contemporary 
and  companion  of  Richard,  celebrated  his  exploits  in  a  Latin 
poem  called  Antiocheis,  of  which  only  a  few  verses  are  extant, 
and  that  a  pilgrim  called  Gulielmus  Peregrinus  wrote  in  Latin 
verse  on  the  same  subject,  but  these  do  not  seem  to  have  ever 
found  English  translators. 

The  following  extract  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  diction 
and  poetical  character  of  the  principal  poem  on  the  exploits  of 
this  king,  which  were  made  known  to  English  readers  in  the 
fourteenth  century  by  a  translation  from  the  French  of  an 
unknown  writer. 


Lect.  V.  BICHARD   CCEUR  DE   LION  227 

Lord  Jesus  kjng  of  glorye 

Suche  gi'ace  and  vyctorye 

Thou  sente  to  Kyng  Ryehard, 

That  netier  was  found  coward ! 

It  is  ful  god  to  here  in  jeste 

Off  his  prowesse  and  hys  conqueste. 

Fele  romanses  men  make  newe, 

Of  good  knyghtes,  strong  and  trewe, 

Off  hey  dedys  men  rede  romance, 

Bothe  in  Engeland  and  in  France : 

Off  Itowelond,  and  of  Olyver, 

And  of  every  doseper; 

Of  Alisander,  and  Charlemain, 

Off  kyng  Arthor,  and  oiFGawayn, 

How  they  wer  knyghtes  good  and  curteys; 

Off  Turpyn,  and  of  Ocier  Daneys; 

Off  Troye  men  rede  in  ryme, 

What  werre  ther  was  in  olde  tyme ; 

Off  Ector,  and  of  Achy  lies, 

"What  folk  they  slowe  in  that  pres. 

In  Frensshe  bookys  this  rym  is  wrought, 

Lewede  menne  knowe  it  nought ; 

Lewede  menne  cunne  French  non ; 

Among  an  hondryd  unnethis  on ; 

And  nevertheles,  with  glad  chere, 

Fele  off  hem  that  wolde  here. 

Noble  justis,  I  undyrstonde, 

Of  doughty  knyghtes  off  Yngelonde. 

Par  foie^  now  I  woll  yow  rede. 

Off  a  kyng,  doughty  in  dede; 

Kyng  Ryehard,  the  werryor  best, 

That  men  fy nde  in  ony  jeste. 

Now  alle  that  hereth  this  talkyng, 

God  geve  hem  alle  good  endyng ! 

Lordynges,  herkens  beforne. 
How  Kyng  Ryehard  was  borne. 
Hys  fadyr  hyghte  Kyng  Henry. 
In  hys  tyme,  sykyrly, 
Als  I  fynde  in  my  sawe, 
Seynt  Thomas  was  i-slawe ; 
(I  2 


228  RICHARD   C(EUR   DE   LION  Lect.  V. 

At  Cantyrbury  at  the  awter-ston, 

"Wher  many  myraclys  are  i-don. 

When  he  was  twenty  wynter  olde, 

He  v/as  a  kyng  swythe  bolde, 

He  wolde  no  wyff,  I  undyrstonde, 

With  grete  tresore  though  he  her  fonde. 

Nevyrtheles  hys  barons  hym  sedde, 

That  he  graunted  a  wyfF  to  wedde. 

Hastely  he  sente  hys  sondes, 

Into  manye  dyverse  londes, 

The  feyreste  wyman  that  wore  on  liff 

Men  wolde  bringe  hym  to  wyfF. 

Messangeres  were  redy  dyght ; 

To  schippe  they  wente  that  ylke  nyght. 

Anon  the  sayl  up  thay  drowgh, 

The  wynd  hem  servyd  wel  inowgh. 

Whenne  they  come  on  mydde  the  sea, 

(No  wynd  onethe  hadden  hee; 

Therfore  hem  was  swythe  woo.) 

Another  schip  they  countryd  thoo, 

Swylk  on  ne  seygh  they  never  non ; 

All  it  was  whyt  of  huel-bon, 

And  every  nayl  with  gold  begrave : 

Off  pure  gold  was  the  stave  ; 

Her  mast  was  y  vory ; 

Off  samyte  the  sayl  wytterly. 

Her  ropes  wer  off  tuely  sylk, 

Al  so  whyt  as  ony  mylk. 

That  noble  schyp  was  al  withoute, 

With  clothys  of  golde  spred  aboute, 

And  her  loof  and  her  wyndas, 

Off  asure  forsothe  it  was. 

In  that  schyp  ther  Aves  i-dyght 
Knyghts  and  ladyys  of  mekyll  myght; 
And  a  lady  therinne  was, 
Bryght  as  the  sunne  thorugh  the  glas. 
Her  men  aborde  gunne  to  stande, 
And  sesyd  that  other  with  her  honde, 
And  prayde  hem  for  to  dwelle, 
And  her  counsayl  for  to  telle: 


Leot.  V.  mCHAED   CCEUR   DE   LION  229 

And  they  graunted  with  all  skylle 

For  to  telle  al  at  her  wylle : 

*  Swoo  wyde  landes  we  have  went, 

For  Kyng  Henry  us  has  sent, 

For  to  seke  hym  a  qwene, 

The  fayreste  that  myghte  fonde  bene.* 

Upros  a  kyng  off  a  chayer, 

With  that  word  they  spoke  ther. 

The  chayer  was  charbocle  ston, 

Swylk  on  ne  sawgh  they  never  non : 

And  two  dukes  hym  besyde, 

Noble  men  and  mekyl  off  pryde, 

And  welcomed  the  messangers  ylkone. 

Into  that  schyp  they  gunne  gone. 

Thrytty  knyghtes,  withouten  lye, 

Forsothe  was  in  that  companye. 

Into  that  riche  schyp  they  went, 

As  messangers  that  weren  i-sent ; 

Knyghtes  and  ladyes  com  hem  ayene ; 

Sevene  score,  and  moo  I  wene, 

Welcomyd  hem  alle  at  on  worde. 

They  sette  tresteles,  and  layde  a  borde; 

Cloth  of  sylk  theron  was  sprad, 

And  the  kyng  hymselve  bad, 

That  his  doughter  wer  forth  fette, 

And  in  a  chayer  before  him  sette. 

Trumpes  begonne  for  to  blowe ; 

Sche  was  sette  forth  in  a  throwe. 

With  twenty  knyghtes  her  aboute, 

And  moo  oft*  ladyes  that  wer  stoute ; 

All  they  gunne  knele  her  twoo. 

And  aske  her  what  she  wolde  have  doo. 

They  eeten  and  drank  and  made  hem  glade,  ' 

And  the  kyng  hymself  hem  bade. 

Whenne  they  hadde  nygh  i-eete. 
Adventures  to  speke  they  nought  forgeete. 
The  kyng  ham  tolde,  in  hys  resoun, 
It  com  hym  thorugh  a  vysyoun, 
In  his  land  that  he  cam  froo, 
Into  Yngelond  for  to  goo ; 


230 


EICHAED    CCEUIl   DE   LION 


Lect.  V. 


And  his  doughtyr  that  was  so  dere, 
For  to  wende  bothe  in  fere. 

*  In  this  manere  we  have  us  dyght, 
Into  that  lond  to  wende  ryght.' 
Thenne  aiinswerjd  a  messanger, 
Hys  name  was  callyd  Bernager, 

*  Forther  wole  we  seke  nought, 
To  my  lord  she  schal  be  brought : 
When  he  her  with  eyen  schal  sen, 
Fol  wel  payed  woll  he  ben.' 

The  wynd  was  out  off  the  northeste, 
And  servede  hem  atte  the  beste. 
At  the  Tour  they  gunne  arryve. 
To  London  the  knyghtes  wente  belyve. 
The  messangers  the  kyng  have  told 
Of  that  lady  fayr  and  bold, 
Ther  he  lay,  in  the  Tour, 
Off  that  lady  whyt  so  flour. 
Kyng  Henry  gan  hym  son  dyght. 
With  erls,  barons,  and  many  a  knyght, 
Agayn  the  lady  for  to  wende : 
For  he  was  curteys  and  hende. 
The  damysele  on  lond  was  led, 
And  clothis  off  gold  before  her  spred, 
And  her  fadyr  her  beforn. 
With  a  coron  off  gold  i-corn ; 
The  messangers  by  ylk  a  syde. 
And  menstralles  with  mekyl  pryde. 

Weber's  Metrical  Romances,  vol.  ii. 


The  early  English  rhymers  and  annalists  observe  a  similar 
mysterious  silence  with  regard  to  King  Alfred,  the  memory  of 
whom,  as  a  Saxon  King,  one  would  suppose,  could  hardly  ever 
have  perished  among  the  direct  descendants  of  his  subjects, 
fellow-soldiers,  and  citizens.  But  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle, 
■which  devotes  about  ten  octavo  pages  to  a  dry  detail  of  some  of 
the  principal  military  and  political  events  of  his  reign,  does  not 
notice  a  single  trait  of  his  moral  or  intellectual  character,  a 
single  interesting  incident  of  his  private  life,  or  a  single 
fact  from  which  it  is  possible  to  form  even  the  most  general 


Lect.  V.  EGBERT  OF  GLOUCESTER  231 

estimate  of  his  merits  as  a  ruler,  or  his  personality  as  a  man. 
Early  English  vernacular  literature  is  equally  barren  of  infor- 
mation respecting  this  remarkable  prince,  and  popular  tradition 
retained  no  remembrance  of  him,  except  as  his  name  was 
connected  with  several  collections  of  proverbs  which  were 
ascribed  to  him. 

The  poems  —  for  such  we  must  call  them  if  all  rhymed  com- 
positions are  poetry — of  Eobert  of  Grloucester,  who  flourished 
about  the  year  1300,  are  of  considerable  philological  importance, 
and  of  some  value  as  contributions  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  England,  though  their  literary  merit  is  of  a  humble 
order. 

The  principal  work  of  this  author  is  a  chronicle  of  England, 
and  there  is  a  collection  of  lives  of  the  English  saints,  which  is 
now  ascribed,  upon  satisfactory  evidence,  to  the  same  writer. 
The  subject  of  this  latter  production  would  naturally  tend,  in 
that  age,  to  give  to  it  a  wider  circulation  than  could  be  acquired 
by  a  voluminous  chronicle  in  great  part  relatiog  to  remote 
secular  events  ;  and  accordingly  we  find  that  the  manuscripts  of 
the  lives  are  much  more  numerous  than  those  of  the  history. 

The  chronicle  deserves  notice,  not  only  for  its  contributions  of 
otherwise  unknown  facts,  but  because  it  is  the  most  ancient 
professed  history  in  the  English  language.  It  extends  from  the 
siege  of  Troy  to  the  death  of  Henry  III.  in  1272.  The  earlier 
part  is  founded  on  GreofFrey  of  Monmouth,  the  latter  generally 
on  more  trustworthy  sources,  and  it  conveys  some  information 
of  value  upon  both  the  physical  and  the  social  condition  of 
England  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  following  lines  are 
favourable  specimens  of  the  author's  manner :  — 

Engelond  ys  a  wel  god  lond,  ich  wene  of  eche  lond  best, 

Y  set  in  pe  ende  of  pe  world,  as  al  in  fe  West. 

pe  see  go)>  liym  al  a  boute,  he  stont  as  an  yle. 

Here  fon^  heo^  durre^  ]7e  lasse  doute,  but  hit  be  forw  gyle 

Of  fol^  of  J>e  selue  lond,  as  me^  haj)  y  seye  wyle. 

^  fon,  pi,  foes.  2  heo,  pers.  pron.  referring  to  England.  ^  durre,  needs,  Ger.  darf. 
fol.  probably  error  for  folc.      ^  me,  men. 


232  ROBERT  OF  GLOUCESTER  Lr.cr.  V. 

From  Soup  to  Nor]?  he  ys  long  ei^te  hondred  myle : 

And  foiire  hondred  myle  brod  from  Est  to  West  to  wende, 

A  mydde  ]>o  lond  as  yt  be,  and  nojt  as  by  fe  on  ende. 

Plente  me  may  in  Engelond  of  alle  gode  y  se, 

Bute  folc  yt  for  gulte  o]?er  jeres  }>e  worse  be. 

For  Engelond  ys  ful  ynow  of  fruy t  and  of  tren, 

Of  wodes  and  of  parkes,  J^at  ioye  yt  ys  to  sen. 

Of  foules  and  of  bestes  of  wylde  and  tame  al  so. 

Of  salt  fysch  and  eche  fresch,  and  fayre  ryueres  J^er  to. 

Of  Welles  swete  and  colde  ynow,  of  lesen  ^  and  of  mede. 

Of  seluer  or  and  of  gold,  of  tyn  and  of  lede. 

Of  stel,  of  yrn  and  of  bras,  of  god  corn  gret  won. 

Of  whyte  and  of  wolle  god,  betere  ne  may  be  non. 

"VVateres  he  ha]?  eke  gode  y  now,  ac  ^  at  be  fore  alle  ofer  ])re 

Out  of  the  lond  in  to  ]>e  see,  armes  as  ]?ei  be. 

"Ware  by  ]>e  schippes  mowe  come  fro  ]>e  se  and  wende, 

And  brynge  on  lond  god  y  now,  a  boute  in  eche  ende. 

In  ]>e  centre  of  Canterbury  mest  plente  of  fysch  ys. 

And  mest  chase  a  boute  Salesburi  of  wylde  bestes  y  wys. 

At  London  schippes  mest,  &  wyn  at  Wyncestre. 

At  Herford  schep  &  orf  3,  &  fruy t  at  Wircestre. 

Sope  a  boute  Couyntre,  yrn  at  Gloucestre. 

Metel,  as  led  &  tyn,  in  fe  centre  of  Excestre. 

Euerwik  of  fairest  wode,  Lyncolne  of  fayrest  men, 

Grantebrugge  and  Hontyndone  mest  plente  of  dup  fen. 

Ely  of  fairest  place,  of  fairest  sijte  Eoucestre. 

Euene  ajeyn  Fraunce  stonde  ]>e  centre  of  Chichestre, 

Norwiche  ajeyn  Denemarc,  Chestre  ajeyn  Yrlond, 

Duram  ajeyn  Norwei,  as  ich  vndersfonde. 

pre  wondres  per  be]?  in  Engolond,  none  more  y  not. 

J)at  water  of  Bajie  ys  pat  on,  j^at  euer  ys  yliche  hot. 

And  fersch  &  euere  springe,  ne  be  chelc*  no  so  gret. 

Suche  bafes  per  be]?  fele  in  pe  clos  &  in  the  stret. 

Upon  pe  pleyn  of  Salesbury  })at  oper  wonder  ys, 

pat  Stonhyngel  ys  y  clepud,  no  more  wonder  nys. 

pe  stones  stondep  per  so  grete,  no  more  ne  mowe  be, 

Euene  vp  ryjt  &  sw}'pe  hye,  pat  wonder  it  is  to  se  : 

•  Icsen,  pastures.  ^  ac,  but.  The  punctuation  is  regulated  rather  by  the 
metre  than  by  the  syntax.  '  orf,  cattle,  here,  and  generally,  black  cattle, 
•vrrongly  explained  by  Coleridge  as  sheep.        *  chele,  cold,  modern  chill. 


Lect.  V.  ROBEllT   OF   GLOUCESTER  233 

And  o]>er  ligge]?  hye  aboue,  fat  a  mon  may  be  of  a  ferd, 

])at  vche  mon  wondre  may  how  heo  were  first  a  rered. 

For  noper  gyn,  ny  monne's  streng};e,  yt  J^ynkep,  ne  myjte  yt  do. 

Telle  me  schal  here  afturward  of  j^is  wondres  bojie  two, 

And  how  heo  were  first  y  mad.     );e  pridde  wonder  ys 

Up  ]?e  hul  of  \)e  pek.     NorJ>  wynd  }>ere  y  wys 

Out  of  ])e  CY])e  ofte  comep,  of  holes  as  yt  were, 

And  blowe])  vp  of  pilke  holes,  so  ]jat  yt  wolde  a  rare 

And  bere  vp  grete  clo]?es,  jef  heo  were  ]?er  ney, 

And  blowe  hem  here  and  |>ere  vi)on  pe  lofte  on  hey. 

Fayre  weyes  monyon  per  be|>  in  Engolonde, 

Ac  foure  most  of  alle  per  be]?  ich  vnderstonde, 

pet  pe  old  kynges  mad,  were  J>oru  me  may  wende 

From  ])e  on  ende  of  Engelond  uorp  to  ]>e  oper  ende. 

From  |>e  Sou]?  tille]?  *  in  to  pe  Nor]?  Eningestret; 

And  from  ]?e  Est  in  to  ]?e  West  Ikenildestrete. 

From  Douere  in  to  Chestre  tille}?  Watlingestrete, 

From  Sou]?  Est  in  to  Nor]?  West,  and  pat  ys  som  del  grete. 

}?e  fer]?e  is  mest  of  alle,  ]?at  tillep  from  Tottenais, 

From  pe  on  ende  Cornewayle  anon  to  Catenays, 

Fro  pe  Norp  Est  in  to  Soup  West  in  to  Engelonde's  ende  : 

Fosse  me  clepup  pike  wey,  pat  by  mony  god  toun  dop  Avende, 

So  clene  lond  ys  Engolond,  and  so  pur  with  outen  ore,^ 

pat  pe  fairest  men  of  pe  world  per  inne  bep  y  bore. 

So  clene,  and  fair,  &  purwyt^,  among  oper  men  heo  bep, 

pat  me  knowep  hem  in  eche  lond  by  syjte,  where  me  hem  sep. 

So  clene  al  so  is  pat  lond,  and  monne's  blod  so  pur, 

pat  pe  gret  vnel*  comep  not  per,  pat  me  clepup  po  holy  fur, 

pat  for  fretep  monnes  lynies,  ryjt  as  heo  were  brende. 

Ac  men  of  France  in  pilke  vnel  me  syp  sone  a  mende, 

jef  heo  ben  broujt  in  to  Engolond :  war  porw  me  may  wyte, 

pat  Engelond  ys  lond  best,  as  yt  is  y  write. 

The  Lives  and  Legends  of  the  Saints,  by  the  same  author,  do 
not  differ  grammatically  from  the  Chronicle,  but  they  are  more 
popular  in  tone,  and  in  general  more  interesting,  because  they 
are,  no  doubt,  very  faithful  reflections  of  the  opinions  and  senti- 

'  tille]},  leads.  -  ore,  here  dross,  as  of  metal,  elsewhere,  mercy.  ^  'purwyt, 
pure- white,  fair-complexioned.         *  vnel,  sickness,  plague. 


234  ROBERT   OF   GLOUCESTER  Lect.  V. 

ments,  as  well  as  of  the  habits  and  manners  of  the  English 
people,  at  a  period  concerning  which  our  sources  of  information 
are  scanty. 

The  Life  of  St.  Brandan,  published  by  the  Percy  Society,  is 
of  the  same  fabulous  character  as  a  large  proportion  of  the 
monkish  legends  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  the  martyrdom  of 
Becket,  also  published  by  the  same  Society,  has  very  much 
higher  pretensions  to  literary  merit  than  most  parts  of  the 
Chronicle  can  boast,  and  is  by  no  means  wanting  in  dramatic 
life  and  spirit.  The  most  curious  part  of  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints  is  a  cosmographical,  astronomical,  and  physiological 
fragment  printed  in  Wright's  Popular  Treaties  on  Science.  Of 
course,  scientific  accuracy  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  a  work  of 
that  period,  but  the  treatise  in  question,  in  its  views  of  the  laws 
of  nature,  and  of  great  cosmical  facts — such  as  the  relative  mag- 
nitudes and  distances  of  the  sun  and  moon,  the  phases  of  the 
latter,  which  are  illustrated  by  comparing  her  to  a  ball  shone 
upon  by  a  candle,  and  the  moon's  influence  on  the  tides — is  much 
less  absurd  than  most  popular  works  of  the  age,  and  therefore, 
with  all  its  errors,  it  may  be  looked  upon  as  containing  truth 
enough  to  make  it  an  instructive  essay.  The  sun  is  stated  to 
be  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  times,  the  earth  nine  times,  as 
large  as  the  moon,  and  as  to  the  distance  of  the  heaven  or  firma- 
ment from  the  earth,  we  are  told  that, — 

Mocbe  is  bituene  hevene  and  urthe,  for  the  man  that  mijte  go 

Eche  dai  evene  fourti  myle  uprijt  and  eke  mo, 

He  ne  scholde  to  the  hexte  hevene,  that  al  day  je  i-seoth, 

Come  in  eijte  thousend  jer,  ther  as  the  sterren  beoth; 

And  thej  Adam  oure  furste  fader  hadde  bi-gonne  anon, 

Tho  he  was  furst  y-maked,  toward  hevene  gon. 

And  hadde  ech  dai  fourti  myle  evene  upri^t  i-go. 

He  nadde  no2,t  gut  to  hevene  i-come  bi  a  thousend  jer  and  mo. 

The  proportion  of  Komance  words  in  the  general  diction  of 
Eobert  of  Gloucester  does  not  exceed  four  or  five  per  cent.,  but 
the  number  of  vocables  of  this  class,  which  make  their  first 


Lect.  V.  ROBEET  OP  BRUNNE  235 

appearance  in  his  works,  is  considerable,  and  his  additions  to 
the  current  vocabulary  of  English  are  important,  though  other- 
wise he  cannot  be  said  to  have  done  much  for  the  elevation  of 
the  native  literature. 

The  rhymed  history  usually  known  as  the  Chronicle  of  Eobert 
Manning,  or  Eobert  of  Brunne,  is  the  most  voluminous  work  in 
the  English  of  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  it 
is  the  last  conspicuous  production  belonging  to  what  most  phi- 
lologists consider  as  the  first  period  of  the  English  language, 
which,  as  before  remarked,  extends  from  about  1250  to  about 
1350.  The  first  part  of  this  chronicle  is  a  translation  from 
the  Brut  of  Wace.  It  comes  down  to  the  death  of  Cadwalader, 
and  has  never  been  printed.  The  second,  a  translation  from 
the  Anglo-Norman  of  Peter  de  Langtoft,  but  with  many 
enlargements  and  corrections,  brings  down  the  history  of 
England  to  the  death  of  Edward  I.  This  was  published  by 
Hearne  in  .1725,  under  the  name  of  Langtoft's  Chronicle,  and 
was  reprinted  in  1810.  The  style  of  de  Brunne  is  superior  to 
that  of  Eobert  of  Gloucester  in  ease,  though  we  can  hardly  say, 
grace  of  expression.  His  literary  merits  are  slender,  and  his 
diction,  which  is  formed  upon  that  of  Eobert  of  Gloucester, 
though  belonging  to  a  rather  more  advanced  period  of  philo- 
logical development,  is  distinguished  from  that  of  his  master 
by  some  important  characteristics.  The  vocabulary  is  consi- 
derably enlarged  by  new  Eomance  words,  but  the  principal 
difference  between  Eobert  of  Gloucester  and  Eobert  of  Brunne 
is,  that  while  the  former  makes  the  third  person  singular  indi- 
cative present  of  the  verb  in  th,  and  generally,  though  indeed 
not  uniformly,  uses  the  Saxon  form  of  the  personal  pronoun, 
the  latter  regularly  employs  the  verbal  ending  s,  and  has  scho 
for  the  nominative  singular  feminine,  and  )?  e  i  in  the  nomina- 
tive, J?  e  r  in  the  genitive  or  possessive  plural  of  the  personal 
pronoun. 

The  prologue  to  the  unpublished  part  of  the  work,  which  is 
de   Brunne's    own,  is  remarkable  for   its   bearing   on   certain 


236^^  EGBERT   OF   BRUNNE  Lect.  V. 

questions  of  old  English  versification.  I  introduce  it  as  a  favour- 
able specimen  of  his  style,  and  it  is  proper  to  remark  that  the 
translator,  in  both  divisions  of  his  work,  followed  the  versifica- 
tion of  his  original ;  the  metre  in  the  first  part  being  octosyllabic, 
while  the  lines  in  the  latter  vary  from  eight  syllables  to  the 
Alexandrine,  or  exanfietron  of  six  feet,  which  was  the  heroic 
measure  of  that  age.  It  will  be  found  in  Hearne's  edition. 
Appendix  to  Preface,  p.  xcvi. 

Lordynges,  that  be  now  here, 

If  ge  wille  listene  &  lere 

All  }>e  story  of  Inglande, 

AIs  Robert  Mannyng  wryten  it  fand, 

&  on  Inglysch  has  it  schewed, 

Not  for  fe  lerid  bot  for  ]?e  lewed, 

For  ]?o  J)at  in  J)is  land  wonn, 

]?at  ]^e  Latyn  no  Frankys  conn, 

For  to  haf  solace  &  gameii 

In  felawscliip  when  ]?ai  sitt  samen. 

And  it  is  wisdom  forto  wytten 

J>e  state  of  J?e  land,  and  haf  it  wryten: 

What  manere  of  folk  first  it  wan, 

&  of  what  kynde  it  first  began. 

And  gude  it  is  for  many  thynges, 

For  to  here  J»e  dedis  of  kynges, 

Whilk  were  foles  &  whilk  were  wyse. 

&  whilk  of  )?am  couth  mast  quantyse ; 

And  whilk  did  wrong  &  whilk  ryght, 

&  whilk  mayntend  pes  &  f>ght. 

Of  J>are  dedes  salle  be  my  sawe, 

In  what  tyme  &  of  what  lawe, 

I  salle  50W  schewe  fro  gre  to  gre, 

Sen  ]7e  tyme  of  sir  Noe, 

Fro  Noe  vnto  Eneas, 

&  what  betAvix  J»am  was, 

And  fi-o  Eneas  tille  Brutus  tyme, 

fat  kynde  he  telles  in  ])is  ryme. 

Fro  Brutus  tillc  Cadwaladres,  \ 

1)6  last  Bryton  ]>at  ])is  lande  lees. 


Lect.  V.  ROBERT   OF  BRUNNE  237 

Alle  J>at  kynde  &  alle  the  frute, 

))at  come  of  Brutus  |)at  is  ]>e  Brute; 

And  ]>e  ryght  Brute  is  told  nomore, 

]?an.the  Brytons  tyme  wore. 

After  ]>e  Bretons  ]>&  Inglis  camen, 

J>e  lordschip  of  pis  lande  fai  namen ; 

South  &  North,  West  &  Est, 

J?at  calle  men  now  ]>e  Inglis  gest. 

When  J)ai  first  amang  ]>e  Bretons, 

])at  now  ere  Inglis  J)an  were  Saxons, 

Saxons  Inglis  hight  alle  oliche. 

fat  aryued  vp  at  Sandwyche, 

In  ]>e  kynge's  tyme  Vortogerne, 

pat  fe  lande  walde  ])am  not  werne. 

fat  were  maysters  of  alle  ]>e  tofire, 

Hengist  he  hight  &  Hors  his  brofire. 

fes  were  hede,  als  we  fynde. 

Where  of  is  com  en  oure  Inglis  kynde. 

A  hundrethe  &  fifty  jere  f  ai  com, 

Or  fat  receyued  Cristendom. 

So  lang  woned  f  ai  f  is  lande  in, 

Or  fa  herde  out  of  Saynt  Austyn, 

Amang  f  e  Bretons  Avith  mykelle  wo, 

In  sclaundire,  in  threte  &  in  thro. 

f  es  Inglis  dedes  je  may  here, 

As  Pers  telles  alle  f  e  manere. 

One  mayster  Wace  f  e  Frankes  telles, 

f e  Brute  alle  fat  f e  Latyn  spelles, 

Fro  Eneas  tille  Cadwaladre, 

f  is  mayster  Wace  f  er  leues  he. 

And  ryght  as  mayster  Wace  sa^s, 

I  telle  myn  Inglis  f  e  same  ways. 

For  mayster  Wace  f  e  Latyn  alle  rymes„ 

fat  Pers  ouerhippis  many  tymes. 

Mayster  Wace  f  e  Brute  alle  redes, 

&  Pers  tellis  alle  f  e  Inglis  dedes. 

f  er  mayster  Wace  of  f  e  Brute  left, 

Eyght  begynnes  Pers  eft, 

And  tellis  forth  f  e  Inglis  story, 

and  as  he  says,  fan  say  I. 


238  ROBERT  OF  BRDNNE  Lect.  V. 

Als  J>ai  haf  wry  ten  &  sayd, 

Haf  I  alle  in  myn  Inglis  layd, 

In  symple  speche  as  I  couthe, 

fat  is  lightest  in  manne's  mouthe. 

I  mad  noght  for  no  disours, 

Ne  for  no  seggers  no  harpours, 

Bot  for  fe  luf  of  symple  mefii, 

]>at  strange  Inglis  caii  not  keii. 

For  many  it  ere  |>at  strange  Inglis 

In  ryme  wate  neuer  what  it  is, 

And  bot  J)ai  wist  what  it  mente, 

Ellis  me  thoght  it  were  alle  schente. 

I  made  it  not  forto  be  praysed, 

Bot  at  ]>e  lewed  men  were  aysed. 

If  it  were  made  in  ryme  couwee, 

Or  in  strangere  or  enterlace, 
J»at  rede  Inglis  it  ere  inowe, 
fat  couthe  not  haf  coppled  a  kowe, 
fat  outhere  in  couwee  or  in  baston 
Som  suld  haf  ben  fordon, 
So  fat  fele  men  fat  it  herde, 
Suld  not  witte  howe  fat  it  ferde. 
I  see  in  song  in  sedgeyng  tale 
Of  Erceldoun  &  of  Kendale, 
Non  ])am  says  as  f  ai  fam  wroght, 
&  in  f  er  sayng  it  semes  noght. 
fat  may  f ou  here  in  Sir  Tristrem, 
Ouer  gestes  it  has  f  e  steem, 
Ouer  all  fat  is  or  was, 
If  meii  it  saj' d  as  made  Thomas, 
Bot  I  here  it  no  mail  so  say, 
fat  of  som  copple  som  is  away. 
So  fare  fayre  saying  here  beforne, 
Is  fare  trauayle  nere  forlorne. 
f  ai  sayd  it  for  pride  &  nobleye, 
fat  non  were  suylk  as  f  ei, 
And  alle  fat  f ai  wild  ouerwhere, 
Alle  fat  ilk  wille  now  forfare, 
f  ai  sayd  in  so  quainte  Inglis, 
fat  manyone  wate  not  what  it  is, 


Lect.  V.  EGBERT   OF   BEUNNE  239 

Jjerfore  heiiyed  wele  J)e  more 

In  strange  ryme  to  trauayle  sore, 

And  my  witte  was  oure  thynne, 

So  strange  speche  to  trauayle  in, 

And  forsoth  I  coutli  noglit 

So  strange  Inglis  as  ])ai  wroglit, 

And  men  besoght  me  many  a  tyme, 

To  turne  it  bot  in  light  ryme. 

|>ai  sayd,  if  I  in  strange  it  turne, 

To  here  it  manyon  suld  skurne. 

For  it  ere  names  fulle  selcouthe, 

J)at  ere  not  vsed  now  in  mouthe. 

And  ]7erfore  for  ]>e  eomonalte, 

]>at  bljthely  wild  listen  to  me. 

On  light  lange  I  it  begaii, 

For  luf  of  ])e  lewed  man, 

To  telle  ])am.  ])e  chaunces  bolde, 

])Sit  here  before  was  don  &  tolde. 

For  ]ns  makyng  I  wille  no  mede, 

Bot  gude  prayere,  when  je  it  rede. 

perfore,  ^e  lordes  lewed, 

For  wham  I  haf  ]ns  Inglis  schewed, 

Prayes  to  God  he  gyf  me  grace, 

I  trauayled  for  jour  solace. 

Of  Brunne  I  am,  if  any  me  blame, 

Robert  Mannyng  is  my  name. 

Blissed  be  he  of  God  of  heuene, 

})at  me  Robert  with  gude  wille  neuene. 

In  J)e  thrid  Edwarde's  tyme  was  I, 

Wheii  I  wrote  alle  f»is  story. 

In  ])e  hous  of  Sixille  I  was  a  throwe, 

Danz  Robert  of  Maltone  pat  je  know 

Did  it  wryte  for  felawes  sake, 

Wheii  ])ai  wild  solace  make. 

The  thirteenth  century  produced  some  interesting  and  curious 
didactic  poems.  Those  which  are  translated  or  imitated  from 
French  or  I^atin  models  have,  as  might  be  expected,  greater 
smoothness  of  versification,  but  less  originality  of  thought  than 
those  which  seem  to  be  of  native  invention.     One  of  the  best 


240  THE  BODY  AND  THE  80UL  Lect.  V. 

specimens  of  the  former  class  is  the  dialogue  between  the  body 
and  the  soul,  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Camden  Societ^'^'s 
edition  of  the  Latin  poems  ascribed  to  Walter  Mapes. 

This  poem  is  believed  by  the  editor  to  be  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  there  are  manuscripts  of  the  English  version,  as 
well  as  of  corresponding  French  and  Latin  texts,  which  cannot 
be  of  a  much  later  date.  I  cannot,  however,  resist  the  con- 
viction that  the  manuscript  from  which  this  text  is  printed  is 
more  recent,  for  its  dialect  is  grammatically  more  modern  than 
that  of  almost  any  English  writer  before  the  time  of  Chaucer. 
The  English  poem  is  a  translation,  but  there  is  reason  to  think 
that  the  Latin  original  is  a  native  English  composition.  It  has 
merit  both  of  thought  and  of  expression,  and  the  interestino- 
glimpses  it  gives  of  the  life  and  manners  of  its  time  invest  it 
with  some  historical  value ;  for  though  it  extends  to  but  two 
hundred  and  fifty  lines,  it  contains  no  inconsiderable  amount  of 
real  information  on  these  subjects.* 

The  commencement  of  the  poem  is  as  follows: — 

Als  I  lay  in  a  winteris  nyt,  in  a  droukening '  bifor  the  day, 
Vor  sothe  I  sau^  a  selly  ^  ?y t,  a  body  on  a  here  lay, 
That  havde  ben  a  mody  ^  knyjt,  and  Intel  served  God  to  payj ; 
Loren  he  haved  the  lives  lyjt ;  the  gost  was  oute,  and  scholde  away. 
Wan  the  gost  it  scholde  go,  yt  bi-wente^  and  Avith-stod, 
Bi-helod  the  body  there  it  cam  fro,  so  serfulli  with  dredli  mod ; 
It  seide,  'weile  and  Avalawo!  avo  worthe  thi  fleys,  thi  foule  blod ! 
Wreche  bodi,  wjy  listouj  so,  that  jwilene  were  so  wilde  and  wod? 

*  There  are  many  points  of  resemblance  between  this  poem  and  an  Anglo-Saxon 
dialogue  on  the  same  subject,  published  from  a  MS.  of  the  twelfth  century,  by 
Sir  T.  Phillips.  The  mutilated  condition  of  the  lattot  renders  the  comparison 
difficidt,  but  the  list  of  luxuries  in  the  old  English  work  seems  to  be  much  more 
copious  than  that  in  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  of  coiirse  to  indicate  an  advance  in 
the  comforts  and  refinements  of  life.  Although  the  copy  published  by  Sir  T. 
Phillips  is  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  dialect  belongs  to  an  earlier  date,  and  the 
poem  was,  in  all  probability,  written  before  the  Norman  Conquest  had  introduced 
the  elegancies,  which  soon  followed  the  transfer  of  the  English  crown  to  the  head 
of  a  French  prince. 

1  droukening,  slumber,  *  selly,  strange.  '  modi/,  proud,  brave.  *  bi- 
wente,  turned  back. 


Lect.  V.  THE   BODY  AND    SOUL  241 

Thow  that  were  woned  to  ride  heyre  on  horse  in  and  ont, 
So  koweynte  knit^,  i-kud^  so  wide,  as  a  lyun  fers  and  proud, 
gwere  is  al  thi  michele  pride,  and  thi  lede^  that  was  so  loud? 
gwi  listou  there  so  bare  side,  i-pricked*  in  that  pore  schroud? 
gwere  beon  thi  castles  and  thi  toures  ?  thi  chaumbres  and  thi  riche 

halles  ? 
I-peynted  with  so  riche  flonres?  and  thi  riche  robes  alle? 
Thine  cowltes-"^  and  thi  covertoures?  thi  cendels  and  thi  riche  palles? 
Wrechede,  it  is  now  thi  bour,  to  nioruwe  thouj  schalt  tlier  inne  falle. 
jwere  ben  thi  murdli^  wedes?  thi  somers'',  with  thi  riche  beddes? 
Thi  proiide  palefreys  and  thi  stedes,  that  thouj  haddest  in  dester 

leddea?^ 
Thi  faucouns  that  were  noujt  to  grede  ?  and  thine  houndes  that  thou 

ledde? 
Me  thinketh  God  is  the  to  guede^,  that  alle  thine  frend  beon  fro  the 

fledde. 
jwere  ben  thine  cokes  snelle,  that  scholden  gon  greithe  thi  mete, 
With  spetes  ^^,  swete  for  to  smelle  ?  that  thouj  nevere  werere  fol  of 

frete,»i 
To  do  that  foule  fleys  to  suwelle  ^2,  that  foule  wormes  scholden  ete? 
And  thouj  havest  the  pine  of  helle  with  glotonye  me  bi-gete, 
For  God  schop  the  aftir  his  schap,  and  gaf  the  bothe  wyt  and  skil; 
In  thi  loking'3  was  i-laft,  to  Avisse  aftir  thin  oune  wil.' 
'Ne  toe  I  nevere  wyche-craft,  ne  wyst  I  jwat  was  guod  nor  il. 
Bote  as  a  wretche  dumb  and  mad,  bote  as  touj  tau;^test  ther  til. 
Set  to  serven  the  to  queme  '"*,  bothe  at  even  and  a  moruen, 
Sithin  I  was  the  bi-taujt  ^^  to  jeme  1^,  fro  the  time  that  thouj  was  born; 
Thouj  that  dedes  couthest  deme,  scholdest  habbe  be  war  bi-forn 
Of  mi  folye,  as  it  semet ;  now  with  thi  selve  thouj  art  for-lorn. 

The  minor  poems  of  the  first  age  of  English  literature  may 
be  divided  into  ballads,  political  songs  and  devotional  verse. 
Many  of  these,  including  some  of  the  most  curious  and  im- 
portant, are  in  Latin.     These  of  course  have  not  much  philo- 

*  koweynte  Jcnit,  quaintly,  cunningly  framed.  ^  i-7cud,  kno-\vn.  ^  lecle,  voice. 
*  i-pricked,  wrapped  or  decked.  *  cowltes,  quilts.  °  murdli,  mirthful,  gay. 
^  somers,  bedsteads.  *  in  dester  leddes,  led  on  the  right  hand  ;  the  plural  form  of 
the  participle  is  curious.  '  guede,  should  be  gnede,  niggardly,  severe.  '"  spetes, 
this  would  regularly  be  spits,  but  I  suspect  it  is  here  spices.  ^^  frete,  eating. 
^"^  suwelle,  meat,  relish  to  bread.  '=*  loJdoig,  care,  custody,  power.  '*  to 
to  please.         '*  bi-tauzt,  committed.         '^  to  ^eme,  to  keep. 

B 


242  POLITICAL  SONGS  Lect.  V. 

logical  relation  to  our  present  subject,  and  I  cannot  notice  them 
further  than  to  state  their  existence,  and  to  invite  attention  to 
them  as  well  worthy  of  perusal. 

The  variety  of  metres  in  these  productions  is  great,  and 
though  we  do  not  find  all  the  modern  forms  of  the  stanza  in 
early  English  verse,  yet  there  are  few  poetic  measures  examples 
of  which  may  not  be  produced  from  that  period.  The  narrative 
poems  in  general  have  little  to  mark  them  as  English,  except 
the  language  in  which  they  are  written.  Poems  of  this  character 
would  circulate  mainly  among  the  comparatively  uneducated 
classes,  and  the  copyists,  by  whom  they  were  transcribed,  would 
generally  be  persons  of  less  accurate  scholastic  training  and 
habits  than  those  engaged  in  the  multiplication  of  works  de- 
signed for  readers  of  higher  culture.  Hence  the  manuscripts 
containing  them  would  be  more  negligently  executed,  and,  con- 
sequently, are  less  to  be  relied  on,  as  evidences  of  the  gram- 
matical character  of  the  language,  than  works  of  higher  aims 
and  greater  literary  merit. 

These  poems  are  generally  anonymous,  a  circumstance  which 
has  been  thought  to  show  that  they  were  translations ;  but  of 
this  we  have  often  better  proof  in  internal  evidence,  or  in  the 
existence  of  the  French  originals,  in  manuscripts  of  more 
ancient  date.  In  fact,  it  was  only  when  the  national  spirit 
was  awakened  to  distinct  consciousness,  by  the  internal  struggle 
called  the  Barons'  wars,  that  sufficient  literary  ambition  was 
roused  to  prompt  to  original  composition ;  and  it  has  been  justly 
remarked  that  the  general  want  of  literary  taste  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  the  best,  most  natural,  and  most  graceful  pro- 
ductions of  French  poets  were  neglected,  while  far  inferior 
works  were  translated  in  considerable  numbers. 

The  political  songs  and  satires  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  are  an  interesting  feature  of  early  English  literature, 
not  as  possessing  merit  of  conception  or  of  execution,  but 
because  they  are  the  first  symptoms  of  a  new  life,  the  first 
evidences  of  nascent  nationality  in  modern  England.  They 
have  some  resemblance  to  the  popular  political  poetry  of  recent 


Lect.  V.  USE   OF   FRENCH   IN   EUROPE  243 

times,  at  least  they  have  its  grossness,  but  they  are  wanting  in 
the  humour  which  characterises  later  English  verse  of  the 
same  class.  Most  .of  the  extant  political  poems  of  the  period 
we  are  discussing  are  in  Anglo-Norman,  or  in  Latin,  for  the 
reason,  among  others,  that  in  the  thirteenth  century,  at  least, 
written  English  was  not  much  employed  for  any  purpose ;  and 
as  there  was  at  that  epoch  no  people,  in  the  modern  social  sense 
of  that  word,  there  existed  no  native  public  interested  in 
political  affairs,  which  could  be  addressed  in  the  native  tongue. 

At  this  time,  the  French  ranked  first  among  the  literary 
languages  of  Europe,  for  it  had  reached  a  much  more  advanced 
stage  of  grammatical  and  rhetorical  culture  than  any  other, 
and  was,  therefore,  better  suited,  not  only  for  poetical  compo- 
sition, but  for  every  branch  of  higher  intellectual  effort.  Its 
superiority  for  literary  purposes  was  felt  and  admitted,  even  in 
states  where  the  influence  of  France  in  political  matters  was 
far  from  great ;  and  French  acquired,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
that  widely  diffused  currency,  as  a  generally  known  and  there- 
fore convenient  common  medium  of  communication,  which  it 
has  ever  since  maintained  throughout  Continental  Europe. 
Martino  de  Canale,  a  Venetian  annalist  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  composed  his  chronicle  in  French,  because,  to  use  his 
own  words:  Hhe  French  tongue  is  current  throughout  the 
world,  and  is  more  delectable  to  read  and  to  hear  than  any 
other.'  *  Brunetto  Latini,  the  teacher  of  Dante,  wrote  hiis  most 
important  work  in  the  same  language,  and  he  thus  apologizes 
for  using  it  instead  of  Italian :  '  If  any  shall  ask  why  this  book 
is  written  in  Eomance,  according  to  the  patois  of  France,  I 
being  born  Italian,  I  will  say  it  is  for  divers  reasons.  The  one 
is  that  I  am  now  in  France,  the  other  is,  that  French  is  the 
most  delightsome  of  tongues,  and  partaketh  most  of  the  com- 
mon nature  of  all  other  languages.'! 

The  employment  of  French  by  native  English  authors  is  by 

*  Ystoire  de  li  Normanz.     Introduction,  xciv. 

t  Et  se  aucuns  demandoit  por  coi  cest  linres  est  escrit  en  romas  selone  le  pacoys 

B  2 


244  USE  OF  FRENCH  IN  ENGLAND  Lect.  V. 

no  means  to  be  ascribed  wholly  to  the  predominance  of  Norman 
influence  in  England,  but,  in  a  considerable  degree,  to  the  fact 
that,  for  the  time,  it  occupied  much  the  same  position  which 
had  hitherto  been  awarded  to  the  Latin,  as  the  common  dialect 
of  learned  Christendom.  This  fact  has  been  too  generally  over- 
looked by  literary  historians,  and  consequently  too  much  weight 
hasbeen  ascribed  to  political  and  social  causes,  in  accounting  for  the 
frequent  use  of  French  by  English  writers,  when,  in  truth,  its  em- 
ployment was  very  much  owing  to  purely  literary  considerations. 

Many  of  the  poems  on  English  political  affairs  were  the  work 
of  native  Norman,  not  English  writers,  though  English  subjects, 
and  some  were  ^vritten  even  in  Provencal. 

As  has  been  already  observed,  a  great  variety  of  metres  are 
employed  in  these  poems ;  but  most  of  the  English,  though 
rhymed,  and  resembling  Eomance  poetry  in  structure,  retain 
the  ancient  national  characteristic  of  alliteration,  and  thus 
combine  the  two  systems,  as  they  do  the  vocabularies,  of  both 
languages.  Others  again  are  partly  in  English,  partly  in  French, 
thus  showing  that  those  for  whom  they  were  written  were 
equally  familiar  with  both  languages.  Thus  a  poem  of  the  year 
1311,  upon  the  violation  of  the  provisions  of  Magna  Charta,  so 
often  confirmed  and  so  often  broken  by  English  kings,  com- 
mences with  a  stanza  in  the  two  languages. 

L'en  puet  fere  et  defere, 

Ceo  fait-il  trop  sovent ; 
It  nis  nouther  wel  ne  faire ; 

Tlierfore  Engelond  is  shent. 

de  france,  puis  que  nos  comesames  ytalliens  ie  diroie  que  ce  est  por  diuerses 
raisons.  I'une  q  nos  somes  en  france  et  I'autre  por  ce  q  la  parleure  est  plus 
delitable  et  plus  comune  a  tous  lengages. 

Manuscript  of  the  Library  of  the  University  of  Turin,  Cod.  L.  II.  18. 
The  form  pa  coys,  generally  written  patois,  is  remarkable,  but  I  know  not  how 
far  it  is  justified  by  other  ancient  authorities.      Diez  supposes  patois  to   be 
an  imitative  word,  and  cites  the  Ilennegau  provincial  pati-pata,  geschnatter, 
chattering,  as  analogous. 

Although  we  cannot  be  certain  as  to  the  precise  definition  which  Brunetto 
Latini  would  have  given  to  pacoys,  he  apparently  uses  it  in  the  sense  oidialect^ 
and  regards  the  Eomance  as  a  general  speech,  of  which  French  was  a  local  form. 


Lect.  V.  ENGLISH   POLITICAL   POEMS  245 

Nostre  prince  de  Engletere, 

Par  le  consail  de  sa  gent, 
At  Westminster  after  the  feire 

Made  a  gret  parlement. 
La  chartre  fet  de  eyre, 

Jeo  I'enteink  et  bien  le  crey, 
It  was  liolde  to  neih  tlie  fire, 

And  is  molten  al  awey. 
Ore  ne  say  mes  que  dire, 

Tout  i  va  a  Tripolay, 
Hundred,  chapitle,  court,  and  shire, 

Al  hit  goth  a  devel  way. 
Des  plusages  de  la  tere 

Ore  escotez  un  sarmoun. 
Of  iiij.  wise-men  that  ther  were, 

Whi  Engelond  is  brouht  adoun. 

The  ferste  seide,  '  I  understonde 
Ne  may  no  king  wel  ben  in  londe, 

Under  God  Almihte, 
But  he  cunne  himself  rede, 
Hou  he  shal  in  londe  lede 
Everi  man  wid  rihte. 

For  might  is  riht, 
Liht  is  night. 
And  fiht  is  fliht. 
For  miht  is  riht,  the  lond  is  laweles; 
For  niht  is  liht,  the  lond  is  loreles ; 
For  fiht  is  fliht,  the  lond  is  nameles.' 

That  other  seide  a  word  ful  god, 
*  Whoso  roweth  ajein  the  flod. 
Off  sorwe  he  shal  drinke ; 
Also  hit  fareth  bi  the  unsele, 
A  man  shal  have  litel  hele 
Ther  agein  to  swinke. 

Nu  on  is  two. 

Another  is  wo, 

And  frend  is  fo.  » 

For  on  is  two,  that  lond  is  streintheles ; 
For  wel  is  wo,  the  lond  is  reutheles ; 
For  frend  is  fo,  the  lond  is  loveles.' 


246  ENGLISH   POLITICAL   POEMS  Lect.  V. 

That  thridde  seide,  *  It  is  no  wonder 
Off  tliise  eyres  that  goth  under, 

Whan  theih  comen  to  londe 
Proude  and  stoute,  and  ginneth  jelpe, 
Ac  of  thing  that  sholde  helpe 
Have  theih  noht  on  honde. 

Nu  lust  haveth  leve, 

Thef  is  reve, 

And  pride  hath  sieve. 
For  lust  hath  leve,  the  lond  is  theweles ; 
For  thef  is  reve,  the  lond  is  penyles ; 
For  pride  hath  sieve,  the  lond  is  almusles.' 

The  ferthe  seide,  that  he  is  wod 
That  dwelleth  to  muchel  in  the  flod, 

For  gold  or  for  auhte ; 

For  gold  or  silver,  or  aiiy  wele, 

Hunger  or  thurst,  hete  or  chele, 

Al  shal  gon  to  nohte. 

Nu  wille  is  red, 

Wit  is  qued, 

And  god  is  ded. 
For  wille  is  red,  the  lond  is  Avrecful ; 
For  wit  is  qued,  the  lond  is  wrongful ; 
For  god  is  ded,  the  lond  is  sinful. 

Wid  wordes  as  we  han  pleid, 
Sum  wisdom  we  han  seid 

Off  olde  men  and  junge ; 
Off  many  a  thinge  that  is  in  londe, 
Whoso  coude  it  understonde. 

So  have  I  told  wid  tongue. 

Eiche  and  pore,  bonde  and  fre, 
That  love  is  god,  ^e  mai  se ; 

Love  clepeth  ech  man  brother; 
For  it  that  he  to  blame  be, 
For^if  hit  him  par  charite, 

Al  theih  he  do  other. 

Love  we  God,  and  he  us  alle, 
That  was  born  in  an  oxe  stalle, 


I 


Lect.  V.  ENGLISH   POLITICAL   TOEMS  247 

And  for  us  don  on  rode. 
His  swete  herte-blod  he  let 
For  us,  and  us  faire  het 

•  That  we  sholde  be  gode. 

Be  we  nu  gode  and  stedefast, 
So  that  we  muwen  at  the  last 

Haven  hevene  blisse. 
To  God  Almihti  I  preie 
Lat  us  never  in  sinne  deie, 

That  joye  for  to  misse. 

Ac  lene  us  alle  so  don  here, 
And  leve  in  love  and  god  manere, 

The  devel  for  to  shende ; 
That  we  moten  alle  i-fere 
Sen  him  that  us  bouhte  dere, 

In  joye  withoute  ende.     Amen. 

The  authors  of  some  of  these  songs  might  even  boast  with 
Dante :  Locutus  sum  in  lingua  trina  ;  for  occasionally  French, 
Latin  and  English  are  intermixed,  as  in  the  following  poem,  of 
the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  also  contained  in  the 
Political  Songs  published  by  the  Camden  Society. 

Quant  honme  deit  parleir,  videat  qua?  verba  loquatur ; 

Sen  covent  aver,  ne  stultior  inveniatur. 

Quando  quis  loquitur,  bote  resoun  reste  therynne, 

Derisum  patitur,  ant  Intel  so  shal  he  wynne. 

En  seynt  eglise  sunt  multi  sa^pe  priores ; 

Summe  beoth  wyse,  multi  sunt  inferiorcs. 

When  mon  may  mest  do,  tunc  velle  suum  manifestat, 

In  donis  also,  si  vult  tibi  pra^mia  pra3stat. 

Ingrato  benefac,  post  haec  a  peyne  te  verra ; 

Pur  bon  vin  tibi  lac  non  dat,  nee  rem  tibi  rendra. 

Sensum  custodi,  quasi  mieu  valt  sen  qe  ta  mesoun ; 

Thah  thou  be  mody,  robur  nichil  est  sine  resoun. 

Lex  lyth  doun  over  al,  fahax  ftaus  fallit  ubique ; 

Ant  love  nys  bote  smal,  quia  gens  se  gestat  inique. 

"Wo  walketh  wyde,  quoniam  movet  ira  potentes: 

Eyht  con  nout  ryde,  quia  vadit  ad  insipientes. 


248  ENGLISH  POLITICAL   POEMS  Lect.  V. 

Dummodo  fraus  superest,  lex  nul  nout  lonen  y  londe ; 

Et  quia  sic  res  est,  rytli  may  nout  radlyche  stonde. 

Fals  mon  freynt  covenaunt,  quamvis  tibi  dicat,  *  habebis.' 

Vix  dabit  un  veu  gaunt,  lene  les  mon  postea  flebis. 

Myn  ant  thyn  duo  sunt,  qui  frangunt  plebis  amorem ; 

Ce  deus  pur  nus  sunt  facienda  scepe  dolorem. 

Tresoun  dampnificat,  et  paucis  est  data  resoun ; 

Eesoun  certificat,  confundit  et  omnia  tresoun. 

Pees  may  nout  wel  be,  dum  stat  per  nomina  bina ; 

Lord  Crist,  that  tliou  se,  per  te  sit  in  hiis  medicina ! 

Infirmus  moritur,  thah  lechcraft  ligge  bysyde ; 

Vivus  decipitur,  nis  non  that  her  shal  abyde 

Tels  phisours  troverez,  qui  de  te  plurima  prendrount ; 

Au  dreyn  bien  verrez,  quod  nullam  rem  tibi  rendrount. 

Esto  pacificus,  so  myh  thou  welde  thy  wylle ; 

Also  veridicus,  ant  stond  pro  tempore  stille. 

Pees  seit  en  tere,  per  te,  Deus,  alma  potestas ! 

Defendez  guere,  ne  nos  invadat  egestas. 

God  Lord  Almyhty,  da  pacem,  Christe  benigne  I 

Thou  const  al  dyhty,  fac  ne  pereamus  in  igne  ! 

This  confusion  of  tongues  led  very  naturally  to  the  corruption 
of  them  all,  and  consequently  none  of  them  were  written  or 
spoken  as  correctly  as  at  the  period  when  they  were  kept  distinct. 
In  short,  the  grammar  of  both  English  and  Anglo-Norman 
became  more  and  more  irregular,  as  French  and  Latin  became 
more  familiar  to  the  English  people.  The  Anglo-Norman,  as 
it  was  observed  in  the  last  lecture,  departed  from  the  Norman- 
French  inflections,  and  Anglo-Latin  became  almost  as  macaronic 
as  the  works  of  Folengo,  or  as  the  Daco-Latin  of  Wallachia, 
where  the  traveller  Walsh  says,  that  he  was  waked  before  dawn, 
by  the  tapster  of  a  humble  inn,  who  was  standing  over  him 
with  brandy-bottle  and  glass,  and  offering  him  a  morning 
draught,  with  the  classic  salutation :  '  Visne  schnapps, 
Domine  ? ' 

In  fact,  a  macaronic  stage  seems  very  often  to  mark  the 
decline  of  an  old  literature  and  language,  in  countries  exposed 


Lect.  V.  MIXTURE   OF   LANGUAGES  249 

to  powerful  foreign  influences.  We  find  examples  of  Latinisms 
in  Byzantine  Greek,  and  of  Hellenisms  in  the  decay  of  classic 
Latin.  Ausonius  —  not  the  last  lawyer  who  has  exchanged  the 
bar  for  the  chair  —  introduces  Grreek  vocables  into  his  verses, 
and,  in  his  twelfth  epistle,  after  saying,  in  hybrid  words,  that  he 
has  wasted  time  enough  in  arguing  causes  in  the  Common  Pleas 
and  in  Bank,  and  in  delivering  lectures  on  rhetoric  : 

Jam  satis,  J  (piXe  IlavXc,  ttovmv  cnreTreipridrifjiev, 
Ev  re.  fopw  causatc  re  kul  ingratalfft  Kade^paigy 
"FrjTopiKdig  ludoiffi,  &c.  &C. 

he  invites  his  friend  Paulus  to  visit  him  and  share  with  him  a 
bottle  of  veritable  Chateau  Margaux,  which  he  calls  : 

vifCTap  vinoto  bonoto. 

The  English  political  poem  oldest  iu  subject,  if  not  in  date, 
contained  in  the  Camden  Society's  volume,  is  a  satire  upon  the 
Emperor,  or  King  of  Almaigne.     It  is  as  follows : — 

SONG  AGAINST  THE  KING  OF  ALMAIGNE. 
[MS.  Harl.  No.  2253,  Fol.  58vo,  of  the  reign  of  Edward  II.] 

Sitteth  alle  stille  ant  herkneth  to  me : 
The  Kyn  of  Alemaigne,  bi  mi  leaute, 
Thritti  thousent  pound  askede  he 
For  te  make  the  pees  in  the  countre, 

ant  so  he  dude  more. 
Eichard,  thah  thou  be  ever  trichard, 

trichen  shalt  thou  never  more.  • 

Eichard  of  Alemaigne,  whil  that  he  wes  kyng, 

T^  vF  tf  TP  yp:  ^ 

Haveth  he  nout  of  Walingford  o  ferlyng  : — 
Let  him  habbe,  ase  he  brew,  bale  to  dryng, 
maugre  Wyndesore. 
Eichard,  thah  thou  be  ever,  etc. 

The  Kyng  of  Alemaigne  wende  do  ful  wel, 
He  saisede  the  mulne  for  a  castel. 


250  POLITICAL   SONGS  Lect.  V. 

With  hare  sharpe  swerdes  he  grounde  the  stel, 
He  wende  that  the  sayles  were  mangonel 
to  helpe  Wyndesore. 
Richard,  etc. 

The  Kyng  of  Alemaigne  gederede  ys  host, 
Makede  him  a  castcl  of  a  mulne  post, 
"Wende  Avith  is  prude  ant  is  muchele  host, 
Brohte  from  Alemayne  mony  sori  gost 
to  store  Wyndesore. 
Eichard,  etc. 

By  God,  that  is  aboven  ous,  he  dude  muche  synne, 
That  lette  passen  over  see  the  Erl  of  Warj'nne : 
He  hath  robbed  Engelond,  the  mores,  ant  th[e]  fenne, 
The  gold,  ant  the  selver,  ant  y-boren  henne, 
for  love  of  Wyndesore. 
Eichard,  etc. 

Sire  Simond  de  Mountfort  hath  swore  bi  ys  chyn, 
Hevede  he  nou  here  the  Erl  of  Waryn, 
Shulde  he  never  more  come  to  is  yn, 
Ne  with  sheld,  ne  with  spere,  ne  with  other  gyn, 
to  help  of  Wyndesore. 
Eichard,  etc. 

Sire  Simond  de  Montfort  hath  suore  bi  ys  cop, 
Hevede  he  nou  here  Sire  Hue  de  Bigot, 
Al  he  shulde  quite  here  twelfmoneth  scot, 
Shulde  he  never  more  with  his  fot  pot 
to  helpe  Wyndesore. 
Eichard,  etc. 

Be  the  luef,  be  the  loht,  sire  Edward, 
Thou  shalt  ride  sporelea  o  thy  lyard 
Al  the  rj'hte  way  to  Dovere  ward ; 
Shalt  thou  never  more  breke  fore -ward, 
ant  that  reweth  sore  : 
Edward,  thou  dudest  ase  a  shreward, 

forsoke  thyn  ernes  lore. 
Eichard,  etc. 

Early  English  satirists  by  no  means  confined  themselves  to 
censuring  political  abuses,  and  in  their  complaints  of  the  cor- 


Lect.  V.  POLITICAL   SONGS  251 

ruption  of  the  Church  they  show  a  boldness  worthy  of  the 
martyr  age  of  the  Eeformation.  The  Latin  poems  of  this  class 
are  particularly  severe,  and  they  are  often  written  in  a  tone  of 
mournful  seriousness,  which  is  not  likely  to  have  been  employed 
except  by  ecclesiastics  who  deeply  felt  the  degradation  to  which 
their  profession  was  reduced,  by  the  depravity  of  the  higher 
classes  of  the  clergy.  Some  of  the  English  songs  on  this 
subject  are  full  of  curious  information  both  on  the  relations 
between  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  and  on  the  habitual  modes  of 
life  of  the  middling  and  lower  classes  of  the  people.  The 
following  is  the  commencement  of  a  long  poem,  contained  in 
the  volume  I  have  so  often  referred  to. 

\Yhii  werre  and  wrake  in  londe  and  manslatiht  is  i-come, 
Whii  hungger  and  dertlie  on  eorthe  the  pore  hath  undernome, 
Whii  bestes  ben  thus  storve,  whii  corn  hath  ben  so  dere, 
je  that  wolen  abide,  listneth  and  je  muwen  here 

the  skile. 
I  nelle  li^en  for  no  man,  herkne  who  so  wile. 

God  greteth  wel  the  clergie,  and  seith  theih  don  amis, 
And  doth  hem  to  understonde  that  litel  treuthe  ther  is ; 
For  -at  the  court  of  Eome,  ther  treuthe  sholde  biginne. 
Him  is  forboden  the  paleis,  dar  he  noht  com  therinne 

for  doute ; 
And  thouh  the  pope  clepe  him  in,  jit  shal  he  stonde  theroute. 

AUe  the  popes  clerkes  han  taken  hem  to  red. 
If  treuthe  come  amonges  hem,  that  he  shal  be  ded. 
There  dar  he  noht  shewen  him  for  doute  to  be  slain, 
Among  none  of  the  cardinaus  dar  he  noht  be  sein, 

for  feerd, 
K  Symonie  may  mete  wid  him  he  wole  shaken  his  herd. 

Voiz  of  clerk  is  sielde  i-herd  at  the  court  of  Rome ; 
Ne  were  he  nevere  swich  a  clerk,  silverles  if  he  come, 
Thouh  he  were  the  wiseste  that  evere  was  i-born, 
But  if  he  swete  ar  he  go,  al  his  weye  is  lorn 

i-souht, 
Or  he  shal  singe  si  dedero,  or  al  geineth  him  noht. 


252  POLITICAL   SONGS  Lect.  V. 

For  if  there  be  in  countre  an  lioreling,  a  shrewe, 

Lat  him  come  to  the  court  hise  nedes  for  to  shewe, 

And  bringe  wid  him  silver  and  non  other  wed, 

Be  he  nevere  so  much  el  a  wrecche,  hise  nedes  sholen  be  spede 

ful  stille, 
For  Coveytise  and  Symonie  han  the  world  to  wille. 

And  erchebishop  and  bishop,  that  ouhte  for  to  enquere 
Off  ale  men  of  holi  churche  of  what  lif  theih  were, 
Sumnie  beth  foles  hemself,  and  leden  a  sory  lif, 
Therfore  doren  hii  noht  speke  for  rising  of  strif 

thurw  clerkes, 
And  that  everich  biwreied  other  of  here  wrecchede  werkes. 

But  certes  holi  churche  is  muchel  i-brouht  ther  doune, 
Siththen  Seint  Thomas  was  slain  and  smiten  of  his  croune. 
He  was  a  piler  ariht  to  holden  up  holi  churche, 
Thise  othere  ben  to  slouwe,  and  feinteliche  kunnen  worche, 

i-wis ; 
Therfore  in  holi  churche  hit  fareth  the  more  amis. 

But  everi  man  may  wel  i-wite,  who  so  take  jeme, 
That  no  man  may  wel  serve  tweie  lordes  to  queme. 
Summe  beth  in  ofice  wid  the  king,  and  gaderen  tresor  to  hepe, 
And  the  fraunchise  of  holi  churche  hii  laten  ligge  slepe 

ful  stille ; 
Al  to  manye  ther  beth  swiche,  if  hit  were  Godes  wille. 

The  feeling  of  conscious  national  life,  which  had  been 
awakened  by  the  Barons'  Wars,  seems  to  have  been  much  less 
freely  manifested  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  in  fact  to  have  become  almost  dormant,  for  a  considerable 
time  before  the  French  wars  of  Edward  III.  roused  it  again  to 
a  long  and  vigorous  activity.  The  volumes  of  political  poems 
of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  which  form  a  part  of  the  series 
of  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  do 
not  contain  a  single  English  song  older  than  those  of  Lawrence 
Minot,  which  were  written  after  the  year  1350. 

The  various  collections  of  poetry  belonging  to  the  first  age 
of  English  literature,  which  the  philological  zeal  of  scholars 


Lect.  V.  LTRIC   POETRY  253 

has  lately  given  to  the  world,  contain  many  descriptive,  amatory, 
and  religious  songs  of  no  inconsiderable  merit.  I  select  the 
following  from  the  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry  composed  in 
England  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I.,  published  by  the  Percy 
Society. 

With  longyng  y  am  lad, 
On  molde  y  waxe  mad, 

a  maide  iriarretli  me; 
Y  grede,  y  grone,  un-glad, 
For  selden  y  am  sad 

that  semly  forte  se; 

levedi,  thou  rewe  me, 
To  routhe  thou  havest  me  rad ; 
Be  bote  of  that  y  bad, 

My  lyf  is  long  on  the. 

Levedy,  of  alle  londe 
Les  me  out  of  bonde, 

broht  icham  in  wo, 
Have  resting  on  honde, 
Ant  sent  thou  me  thi  sonde, 

sone,  or  thou  me  slo ; 

my  reste  is  with  the  ro : 
Thah  men  to  me  han  onde. 
To  love  nuly  noht  wonde, 

ne  lete  for  non  of  tho. 

Levedi,  with  al  my  miht 
My  love  is  on  the  liht, 

to  menske  when  y  may ; 
Thou  rew  ant  red  me  ryht, 
To  dethe  thou  havest  me  diht, 

y  deje  longe  er  my  day ; 

thou  leve  upon  mi  lay. 
Treuthe  ichave  the  plyht, 
To  don  that  ich  have  hyht, 

whil  mi  lif  leste  may. 

Lylie-whyt  hue  is, 
Hire  rode  so  rose  on  rys, 
that  rcveth  me  mi  rest. 


254  LYRIC   POETRY  Lect.  V. 

Wymmon  war  ant  wys, 

Of  prude  hue  beretli  the  pris, 

burde  on  of  the  best ; 

this  wommon  woneth  by  west, 
Brihtest  under  bys, 
Hevene  y  tolde  al  his 

That  o  nyht  were  hire  gest. 

Lenten  ys  come  with  love  to  toune, 
With  blosmen  ant  with  briddes  roune, 

that  al  this  blisse  bryngeth; 
Dayes-ejes  in  this  dales, 
Notes  suete  of  nyhtegales, 

uch  foul  song  singe th. 
The  threstelcoc  him  threteth  oo, 
A- way  is  huere  wynter  wo, 

when  woderove  springeth ; 
This  foules  singeth  ferly  fele. 
Ant  wlyteth  on  huere  wynter  wele, 

that  al  the  wode  ryngeth. 

The  rose  rayleth  hire  rode, 
The  leves  on  the  lythe  wode 

waxen  al  with  wille ; 
The  mone  mandeth  hire  bleo, 
The  lilie  is  lossom  to  seo, 

the  fenyl  ant  the  fille; 
Wowes  this  wilde  drakes. 
Miles  murgeth  huere  makes, 

ase  strem  that  striketh  stille; 
Mody  meneth,  so  doh  mo, 
Ichot  ycham  on  of  tho, 

for  love  that  likes  ille. 
The  mone  mandeth  hire  lyht, 
So  doth  the  semly  sonne  bryht, 

when  briddes  singeth  breme ; 
Deowes  donketh  the  dounes, 
Deores  with  huere  deme  rounes, 

domes  forte  deme ; 
Wormes  woweth  under  cloude, 
Wymmen  waxeth  wounder  proude, 


LaCT.  V.  LYRIC   POETRY  255 

SO  well  hit  wol  liem  seme, 
jef  me  shal  wonte  wille  of  on, 
This  wunne  weole  y  wole  for-gon, 

ant  wyht  in  wode  be  fleme. 


Wynter  wakeneth  al  my  care, 
Nou  this  leves  waxeth  bare, 
Ofte  y  sike  ant  mourne  sare, 

When  hit  cometh  in  my  thoht 

Of  this  worldes  joie,  hou  hit  goth  al  to  noht. 

Now  hit  is,  ant  now  hit  nys, 

Also  hit  ner  nere  y-wys, 

That  moni  mon  seith  soth  his  ys, 

Al  goth  bote  Godes  wille. 

Alle  we  shule  deye,  thath  us  like  ylle. 

Al  that  gren  me  graueth  grene, 
Non  hit  faleweth  al  by-dene; 
Jhesu,  help  that  hit  be  sene, 

And  shild  us  from  helle, 

For  y  not  whider  y  shal,  ne  hou  longe  her  duelle. 


Jesu,  for  thi  muchele  miht, 

thou  jef  us  of  thi  grace, 
That  we  mowe  dai  ant  nyht 

thenken  o  thi  face. 
In  myn  herte  hit  doth  me  god, 
When  y  thenke  on  Jesu  blod, 

that  ran  doun  bi  ys  syde, 
From  his  herte  doun  to  his  fot, 
For  ous  he  spradde  is  herte  blod, 

his  wondes  were  so  wyde. 

When  y  thenke  on  Jhesu  ded, 
min  lierte  over-werpes, 

Mi  soule  is  won  so  is  the  led 
for  my  fole  werkes. 

Ful  wo  is  that  iike  mon. 

That  Jhesu  ded  ne  thenkes  on, 


256  LYRIC   POETRY  Lkct.  V. 

wliat  he  soffrede  so  sore  t 
For  my  synnes  y  •wil  wete, 
Ant  alle  y  wyle  hem  for-lete 

nou  ant  evermore. 

Mon  that  is  in  joie  ant  blis, 

ant  lith  in  shame  ant  synno, 
He  is  more  then  un-wis 

that  ther-of  nul  nout  blynne. 
Al  this  world  hit  geth  a-way, 
Me  thynketh  hit  ne^yth  domesday, 

nou  man  gos  to  ground  e ; 
Jhesu  Crist  that  tholede  ded, 
He  may  oure  soules  to  hevene  led, 

withinne  a  Intel  stounde. 

Thah  thou  have  al  thi  wille, 

thenk  on  Godes  wondes, 
For  that  we  ne  shulde  spille, 

he  tholede  harde  stoundes ; 
Al  for  mon  he  tholede  ded, 
jyf  he  wyle  leve  on  is  red, 

ant  leve  his  folie, 
We  shule  have  joie  ant  blis, 
More  than  we  conne  seien  y-wys 

in  Jesu  compagnie. 

Jhesu,  that  wes  milde  ant  fre, 

wes  with  spere  y-stonge ; 
He  was  nailed  to  the  tre, 

with  scourges  y-swongen. 
Al  for  mon  he  tholede  shame, 
Withouten  gult,  withouten  blame, 

bothe  day  ant  other. 
Mon,  ful  muchel  he  lovede  the, 
When  he  Avolde  make  the  fre^ 

ant  bicome  thi  brotlier. 


k 


Lect.  V.  INFLECTIONAL  CHANGES  257 


NOTE   ON   INFLECTIONAL   AND   GRAMMATICAL    CHANGES. 

The  origin  of  changes  in  inflection  can  very  seldom  be  traced,  becanse 
they  originate  in  popular  speech,  and  are  not  adopted  by  the  written 
tongue  until  the  mode  and  occasion  of  their  introduction  is  forgotten  ; 
but  in  cases  where  the  native  has  been  brought  into  contact  with  a 
foreign  language,  we  can  often  see  how  a  new  tendency  might  have 
been  created,  or  an  existing  one  strengthened,  towards  a  revolution  in 
a  particular  direction.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  the  old  verbal  plural  in 
-en.  The  Anglo-Saxon  plural  indicative  present,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  ended  in  th,  so  that  instead  of  we  love,  or  we  loven,  the  Saxons 
said  we  lufia^^,  with  the  same  consonantal  ending  as  in  the  singular, 
he  Iwf- at h.  The  past  tense  of  the  indicative,  as  we  luf -o don,  ive 
loved,  and  of  both  tenses  of  the  subjunctive,  as  we  luf- ion,  that  we 
may  love,  we  lui-odon,  that  ive  might  love,  always  ended  in  -on. 
But  though  the  present  indicative  plural  of  all  regular  verbs  ended  in 
th,  all  the  semi-auxiliaries,  except  willan,  to  will,  made  the  plural  in 
on,  and  the  Anglo-Saxons  said  we  \Y\l\ath,  ive  will,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  Ave  scealow,  we  magow,  we  cunnon,  we  moton,  for 
we  shall,  we  may,  we  can,  we  must. 

The  Norman-French,  like  modern  French,  made  the  first  person 
plural,  in  all  cases,  in  ons — the  5  being  probably  silent  as  it  now  is — 
and  said  nous  aimons,  we  love.  This  termination,  though  a  nasal, 
bore  a  considerable  resemblance  to  the  Saxon  plural  in  on.  There  was, 
then,  a  common  point  in  which  the  two  languages  concurred.  The 
Frenchman  could  not  pronounce  the  th,  and  as  the  two  nations  had 
agreed  to  adopt  s,  the  nearest  approximation  a  Norman  could  make  to 
the  sound  of  th,  as  the  sign  of  the  third  person  singular  of  the  verb, 
it  was  very  natural  that  they  should  employ  the  sign  on,  which  was 
common  to  both,  as  the  sign  of  the  plural. 

The  Saxon  ending  on  was  not  accented,  and  the  vowel  was  pro- 
'  bably  somewhat  obscurely  articulated,  like  the  e,  in  the  modern  termi- 
nation en,  in  the  verb  harden  and  others  of  that  ending.  These  cir- 
cumstances tend  to  explain  why  we  find  the  plural  of  the  indicative 
present  in  the  Ormulum  with  the  ending  in  en  instead  of  th.  This 
soon  became  the  regular  form  in  English,  and  this  was  the  first  step  of 
progress  to  the  modern  dialect,  in  which  we  have  dropped  the  plural 
ending  altogether,  giving  it,  in  all  the  persons,  the  same  form  as  the 
first  person  singular.     Thus  we  say,  I  love,  and  we  love,  you  love,  they 

s 


258  INFLECTIONAL   CHANGES  Lect.  V. 

love,  while  early  English  writers  said  :  I  love,  but  we  loven,  you  loven, 
they  loven. 

In  modern  French,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  in  Old 
Norman-French  also,  the  three  persons  of  the  singular  and  the  third 
person  of  the  plural  of  the  verb,  though  the  latter  has  an  additional 
syllable  in  writing,  are  pronounced  alike,  the  terminal  syllable  being 
silent  in  speech;  for  the  plural  aiment  is  pronounced  aime,  just 
like  the  singular,  aime.  Of  the  six  persons,  singular  and  plural,  the 
French  pronounce  four  alike,  rejecting  the  plural  ending  ent  alto- 
gether, and  this  fact  probably  contributed  to  facilitate  the  dropping 
of  the  new  English  plural  ending  in  en,  which  did  not  long  remain  in 
use. 

Another  new  form  of  expression  first  exemplified,  so  far  as  I  know, 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  the  use  of  the  plural  pronoun  instead  of 
the  singular,  in  addressing  a  single  person.  I  do  not  observe  this  use 
of  the  pronoun  in  contemporaneoiis  French,  nor  in  any  of  the  Northern 
Gothic  languages,  but  it  was  already  common  in  Dutch,  and  it  is  pos- 
sible that  the  English  borrowed  it  from  that  source.  Not  many  English 
words  or  forms  are  derived  from  the  Dutch,  but  Chaucer  quotes  a 
Flemish  proverb,  and  one  of  the  words  occurring  in  it,  quad  or  qued, 
bad,  evil,  is  found  in  the  Owl  and  Nightingale,  the  Surtees  Psalter,  as 
well  as  in  other  early  English  writers.  Bidine,  too,  common  in  old 
ballads,  occurs  in  the  Surtees  Psalter.*  These  words  are  not  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  as  they  were  probably  taken  from  the  Dutch,  other  words 
and  forms  may  have  been  received  from  the  same  language. 

But  though  the  plural  pronoun  was  thus  early  applied  to  single  per- 
sons, the  complete  separation  of  the  two,  and  the  confinement  of  the 
singular  thou  to  the  religious  dialect,  are  very  much  later.  They  seem 
to  have  been  employed  indiscriminately  for  several  centuries,  and  in 
the  Morte  d' Arthur,  printed  in  1485,  thou  and  i/ou,  tliy  and  your  are 
constantly  occurring  in  the  same  sentence,  and  addressed  to  one  and 
the  same  person. 

*  Huydecoper,  in  his  Breedere  aanteTceningen  op  Melis  Stoke,  I.,  227,  examines 
the  etymology  of  bide  en  at  considerable  length.  It  is  a  compound  of  the 
particle  by  and  the  demonstrative  pronoun:  by  dien,  the  primitive  meaning 
being,  thereby,  thereupon,  and  hence,  immediately. 


LECTUEE  YI. 

COMMENCEMENT   OF   SECOND   TEEIOD  :     FROM    1350   TO   THE 
TIME   OF   THE   AUTHOR   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN. 

We  are  now  to  enter  on  a  new  philological  and  literaiy  era,  an 
era  in  which  English  genius  first  acquired  a  self-conscious  in- 
dividuality, and  the  English  language  and  its  literature  dis- 
entangled themselves  from  the  confusion  in  which  the  conflict- 
ing authority  of  Saxon  precedent  and  French  example  had 
involved  them.  In  this  second  period,  the  speech  of  England 
became,  no  longer  an  ill-assorted  mixture  of  discordant  in- 
gredients, but  an  organic  combination  of  well  assimilated,  though 
heterogeneous  elements,  animated  by  a  law  of  life,  and  endowed 
with  a  vigour  of  constitution  which  has  given  it  a  luxuriant 
youth  and  a  healthful  manhood,  and  still  promises  it  a  length 
of  days  as  great,  an  expansion  as  wide,  as  have  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  any  of  the  tongues  of  man. 

Considering  English,  then,  as  primarily  and  radically  a  Gothic 
speech,  invested  with  a  new  aspect,  and  inspired  with  a  new 
life  by  Eomance  influences  —  just  as  animals  are  so  modified, 
in  habits,  instincts,  size  and  specific  characteristics,  by  changes 
of  nutriment,  climate,  and  other  outward  circumstances,  that 
the  unscientific  observer  hesitates  to  recognise  them  as  still 
belonging  to  the  primitive  stock  —  let  us  inquire  for  a  moment 
into  the  nature  of  the  action  by  which  external  forces  could 
produce  such  important  revolutions. 

There  are  two  principal  modes  in  which  foreign  conquest 
and   foreign  influence  affect  language.      The    first  and  most 

s  2 


260  VOCABULARY   OF    OLD   ENGLISH  Lect.  VI. 

obvious  is,  by  the  introduction  of  foreign  words,  idioms,  and 
grammatical  forms,  which  may  be  carried  far  without  any  very 
appreciable  effect  upon  the  radical  character  of  the  language, 
or  upon  the  spirit  of  the  people  who  use  it.  The  other  is 
the  more  slowly  and  obscurely  manifested  action  of  new  insti- 
tutions, laws,  and  opinions  upon  the  intellectual  constitution 
and  habits  of  thought  of  the  people,  and,  indirectly,  upon  the 
logical  structure  of  the  language  as  the  vehicle  of  the  expres- 
sion of  the  national  mind  and  character. 

We  should  suppose,  a  priori,  that  the  first  influence  of  a 
cultivated  language,  employed  by  a  conquering  people,  upon 
the  less  advanced  speech  of  a  ruder  subject  race,  would  be  to 
denationalize  its  vocabulary  by  the  introduction  of  a  large 
number  of  foreign  words,  and  that  syntactical  changes  would 
be  slower  in  finding  their  way  into  the  grammar ;  but  the 
history  of  the  modern  languages  known  in  literature  seems  to 
show  that  this  is  not  universally  the  case. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  curious  inversion  of  periodic 
arrangement  which  the  Turkish  has  produced  in  the  modern 
Armenian,  without  much  affecting  the  vocabulary  ;  and  I  have 
given  reasons  for  believing  that  both  Moeso-Gothic  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  were  influenced,  in  certain  points  of  their  grammar,  by 
Grreek  and  Latin  syntax.  The  Grothic  languages,  which  seem 
to  have  modified  the  structure  of  the  Romance  dialects,  have  not 
bestowed  upon  them  any  very  large  proportion  of  Northern 
words ;  and  though  the  syntax  of  the  native  speech  of  England 
underwent  important  changes  between  the  Norman  Conquest  and 
the  close  of  the  period  we  have  just  dismissed,  yet  the  number  of 
Eomance  words  which  had  been  naturalized  in  England  was,  thus 
far,  by  no  means  considerable.  As  has  been  before  observed,  the 
whole  number  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  French  words  found  in  the 
printed  English  authors  of  the  thirteenth  century,  even  in- 
cluding those  which  Anglo-Saxon  had  borrowed  from  the 
nomenclature  of  theology  and   ethics,    scarcely   exceeds   one 


Lect.  VI.  NEW  NATIONALITY  261 

thousand,  or  one  eighth  part  of  the  total  vocabulary  of  that 
era;  and  in  the  actual  diction  of  any  one  English  writer  of 
the  period  in  question,  not  above  one  word  in  twenty  or  twenty- 
five  is  of  Latin  or  Komance  derivation. 

But  while  these  influences  were  so  slow  and  so  gradual  in 
their  operation  on  the  lexical  character  of  English,  moral  causes 
were  at  work,  which,  at  the  critical  moment,  gave  new  energy  to 
the  assimilative  power  of  the  English  tongue,  and  when  the 
craving  for  a  more  generous  intellectual  diet  was  distinctly  felt, 
and  larger  facilities  were  demanded,  English  suddenly  enriched 
itself  by  a  great  accession  of  Latin  and  Romance  words.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  hereafter,  that  at  the 
very  moment  when  it  was  naturalizing  this  foreign  element  with 
the  greatest  rapidity,  it  asserted  most  energetically  its  gram- 
matical independence,  and  manifested  a  tendency  to  the 
revival  of  Anglo-Saxon  syntactical  forms  which  had  become 
well-nigh  obsolete. 

Hitherto,  change  had  been  principally  in  the  way  of  disor- 
ganization, decomposition,  but  when  the  inhabitants  of  England 
no  longer  consisted  of  a  corporation  of  foreign  lords  and  a  herd 
of  aboriginal  serfs,  when  a  community  of  interest  had  grown  up 
between  the  native  and  the  stranger,  and  mutual  sympathies 
were  born,  then  a  new,  heroic  and  genial  nationality  sprang  into 
being,  revived  the  sparks  that  yet  slumbered  in  the  ashes  of 
departed  Saxondom,  and  fed  them  with  a  fuel  borrowed  alike 
from  the  half-forgotten  stores  of  native  growth  and  from  the 
more  abundant  products  of  sunny  and  luxuriant  France. 

Romance  words  and  forms  had  been  imposed  by  foreign 
authority  upon  a  reluctant  and  unreceptive  speech,  the  sufficient 
medium  of  communication  for  a  people  too  rude  and  unculti- 
vated to  feel  its  own  debasement,  and  to  know  the  extent  of  its 
own  intellectual  deficiencies ;  but  when  revived,  or  rather  new- 
born, England  awakened  to  a  consciousness  of  the  wants  which 
make  themselves  so  imperiously  felt,  whenever  a  new  national 


262  POPULAR  LITERATURE  Lect.  VI. 

life  is  developed,  it  proceeded  to  supply  those  wants  by  the  sum- 
mariest  methods,  from  all  accessible  sources. 

Thenceforward,  to  use  the  comparison  of  St.  Jerome,  it  seized 
and  appropriated  foreign  words  as  a  conqueror, —  no  longer  un- 
willingly received  and  bore  than  as  a  badge  of  servitude  to  an 
alien  yoke. 

English,  as  distinguished  from  Anglo-Saxon,  thus  far  can 
liardly  be  said  to  have  gained  other  than  a  negative  existence, 
for  it  had  lost  the  formal  characteristics  of  the  old  speech,  and 
had  not  yet  acquired  the  shape  or  spirit  of  the  new.  The 
spoken  and  written  dialect  was  but  a  corrupted  and  denaturalized 
jargon,  or  rather  congeries  of  jargons,  for  every  district  had  its 
local  patois  which  was  broadly  distinguished  from  the  speech  of 
other  shires.  The  necessities  of  social  and  political  life,  indeed, 
compelled  the  occasional  employment  of  these  native  dialects  in 
written  communication,  by  persons  whose  scholastic  training 
was  Latin  or  French;  but  until  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  there  was  no  indigenous  public  which  possessed  a 
written  vernacular,  to  any  such  extent  as  to  be  accessible  to 
literary  influences.  For  all  the  purposes  of  common  national 
culture,  therefore,  English  may  be  regarded  as  still  un- 
written. 

I  have  before  remarked  that  the  popular  ballads,  which  ex- 
isted in  local  dialects,  did  not  constitute  a  literature,  and  that 
England  had  no  peculiar  literature  of  her  own  till  after  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  mass  of  those  who 
spoke  the  native  tongue,  of  those  who  listened  to,  and  even 
those  who  composed,  the  popular  ballads,  were,  in  all  proba- 
bility, wholly  ignorant  of  letters,  and  for  them  English  existed 
only  as  a  spoken  language.  The  traditions  and  the  legends, 
the  ballads  and  the  war-songs,  which  float  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  in  any  unwritten  speech,  cannot  constitute  a  literature, 
for  they  cannot  exist  in  fixed  and  permanent  forms.  In  the 
retentive  memory  of  the  humblest  class  of  bards  and  narrators. 


Lect.  VI.  POPULAR  LITERATURE  263 

they  may  dwell  and  be  repeated  for  years  with  little  change  of 
form  or  substance.  But  most  of  the  poetical  reciters  and  saga- 
men  are  themselves  creators,  and  if  memory  chance  to  fail,  or 
if  a  finer  ear  or  a  more  imaginative  temperament  suggest 
improvements  in  the  ballad  or  the  story  they  recite,  they  will 
not  scruple  to  make  verbal  or  inventive  changes.  Hence  every 
bard  is  continually  moulding  and  remoulding  his  lays  into 
accordance  with  his  habitual  tastes  and  sentiments,  or  with  the 
changeful  temper  which  the  humour  of  the  moment  may 
inspire.  The  leading  facts,  the  raw  material,  may  remain  the 
same,  but  the  poem  or  the  saga,  so  long  as  it  is  unrecorded,  will 
continually  appear  and  reappear  in  a  new  dress,  a  new  phraseo- 
logy, and  often  in  a  new  predominant  strain  of  imagery,  of 
thought  or  of  sentiment. 

Now,  constant  peculiarities  of  verbal  combination,  of  prevalent 
tone,  and  especially  of  the  aspect  in  which  the  relations  between 
man  and  man,  and  man  and  nature,  are  viewed,  constitute  the 
characteristic  and  essence  of  every  primitive  national  literature, 
and  difference  the  imaginative  creations  of  one  nascent  people 
from  those  of  another.  They  are  at  once  the  flesh  that  clothes, 
and  the  organic  principle  that  animates  and  individualises  the 
intellectual  products  of  all  uncultivated  races.  In  partially  civi- 
lized nations,  living  under  similar  climatic  and  other  physical 
conditions,  the  subjects  will  be  alike,  the  leading  facts  of  life 
nearly  identical ;  but  it  is  the  point  of  view  from  which  facts 
are  regarded,  the  embellishments  of  fancy  with  which  they 
are  decorated,  that  characterize  and  distinguish  the  national 
treatment  of  them,  or,  in  other  words,  the  national  literature, 
in  ruder  periods  of  associate  life. 

The  poems  and  tales  of  primitive  ages  turn  mainly  on  the 
material  interests  of  men,  though  the  events  which  act  upon 
those  interests  may  be  occasioned  by  moral  affections,  passions, 
or  emotions.  The  moral  judgment  on  facts,  and  even  the 
exhibition  of  their  moral  results,  the  discussion  of  their  bearing 


264'  '*BifLABGEMENT   OF  VOCABULARY  Lect.  VI. 

on  the  interests  of  society,  belong  to  later  ages,  and  to  an 
entirely  different  phase  of  literature.* 

Until  the  intellectual  productions  of  rude  eras  are  recorded, 
and  preserved  in  permanent  memorials,  so  as  to  afford  oppor- 
tunities for  study,  comparison,  imitation,  they  will  be  individual 
in  the  moral  and  the  imaginative  element  that  enters  into  them ; 
and  while  they  bear  the  general  likeness  which  beloDgs  to  all 
the  productions  of  uncultivated  races,  differenced  only  by  the 
special  character  of  each  writer,  they  will  not  be  marked  by  the 
finer  analogies,  the  subtler  contrasts,  and  the  nicer  shades  of 
colour,  which  are  the  result  of  artificial  culture,  and  which  be- 
come, when  made  in  a  certain  degree  uniform  and  permanent, 
the  characteristics  of  national  genius. 

The  birth  or  revival  of  a  truly  national  and  peculiar  literature 
is  generally  contemporaneous  with  an  enlargement  of  the  voca- 
bulary, by  foreign  importation,  or  by  the  resuscitation  of  obsolete 
words  of  native  growth.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  say  whether 
this  extension  of  the  means  of  expression  is  the  cause  or  the 
consequence  of  the  conception  and  familiarization  of  new  ideas ; 
but,  in  any  event,  new  thoughts  and  new  words  are  necessarily 
connected,  if  not  twin-born.  Hence  the  awakening  of  a  new 
spirit  of  nationality  —  which  was  a  result  of  the  French  and 
Scotch  wars  of  Edward  III.  —  the  enlargement  of  the  English 
vocabulary,  and  the  impulse  to  the  creation  of  an  original 
English  literature,  were  nearly  simultaneous.  English  scholars, 
though  trained  as  all  educated  Englishmen  thus  far  had  been, 

*  In  the  Icelandic  sagas,  it  is  rare  to  find  any  condemnation  of  the  acts  of 
cruel  violence  in  which  those  narratives  abound,  and  a  bloody  murder  is  generally 
spoken  ofasastorvirki,  a  great  act.  Thus  in  Njala,  when  Flosi  was  prej)aring 
to  attack  the  sons  of  Njall  with  fire  and  sword,  he  concealed  his  purpose  from  his 
father-in-law  Hallr,  because  he  thought  Hallr  would  letia  allra  storvirkia, 
prevent  all  murder.  Morgum  jjotti  }jat  storvirki,  morgum  Jjotti  hann 
harm-dau<5i,  it  seemed  to  many  a  great  act,  to  many  his  seemed  a  death  to  be 
regretted,  are  the  strongest  expressions  of  disapprobation  commonly  used  on 
such  occasions. 

It  is  worth  noticing  that,  in  the  last  example,  harm-dauSi  is  an  adjective 
agreeing  with  the  subject  of  the  phrase. 


Lect.  VI.         ENLARGEMENT  OF  VOCABU: 


in  schools  where  only  French  and  Latin  were  grammatically 
taught,  had  already  become  weary  of  reading  even  the  master- 
pieces of  Continental  genius  in  a  foreign  garb,  and  the  trans- 
lation of  French  poems  into  the  native  speech  of  England, 
their  naturalization  as  English  possessions,  was  the  first  move- 
ment in  the  manifestation  of  a  new  literary  life. 

The  want  of  a  sufficient  nomenclature  and  the  convenience 
of  rhyme  and  metre,  as  is  very  clearly  seen  in  all  the  older 
English  versions,  naturally  led  to  the  employment  of  many 
French  words  in  the  translations ;  and  in  an  age  when  Latin 
and  French,  or  at  least  the  latter,  were  quite  as  familiar  to 
every  educated  man  as  English,  a  considerable  proportion  of 
French  words  might,  in  Englishing  French  poems,  be  intro- 
duced almost  unconsciously  to  the  translator,  and  without 
exciting  much  notice  on  the  part  of  a  reader.  The  circulation 
of  translated  works  was  no  longer  confined  to  the  higher  classes, 
who  hitherto  had  alone  enjoyed  any  opportunities  for  literary 
culture.  About  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  schools 
were  established  in  which  English  was  both  taught  as  itself 
an  object  of  study,  and  employed  as  a  vehicle  of  instruction 
in  other  languages  and  disciplines.  Whatever  existed  in  the 
English  tongue,  whether  by  translation  or  by  original  compo- 
sition, now  became  a  part  of  the  general  patrimony  of  the 
English  people,  and  there,  as  everywhere  else,  the  learning,  the 
poetry,  the  philosophy,  which  had  been  slowly  gathered  on  the 
summits  of  social  life,  and  had  been  the  peculiar  nutriment  of 
favoured  classes,  now  flowed  down  to  a  lower  level,  and  re- 
freshed, as  with  the  waters  of  a  fountain  of  youth,  the  humbler 
ranks  of  the  English  people.  Native  poets,  composing  original 
works  in  their  own  tongue,  would  naturally  use  the  poetic 
diction  in  which  the  productions  of  French  literature  had  been 
clothed  in  assuming  an  English  dressy  for  these  were  their  only 
vernacular  models.  But  English  rh3niiers  were  still  generally 
acquainted  with  French,  and  that  language,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  already  attained  a  culture  which  eminently  fitted  it  for 


266  ENLARGEMENT   OF   VOCABULARY  Lect.  VI. 

literary  purposes,  and  made  it,  as  the  Latin  has  always  been,  a 
storehouse  of  poetic  wealth  in  words  as  well  as  in  thought,  and 
a  convenient  resource  to  versifiers  who  were  in  vain  struggling 
to  find  adequate  expression  in  the  vocabulary  of  Saxon-English. 
The  English  middle  classes,  who  were  now,  for  the  first  time, 
admitted  to  the  enjoyment  of  literary  pleasures,  accepted,  as  a 
consecrated  speech,  the  dialect  employed  by  their  authors  and 
translators,  without  inquiry  into  the  etymology  of  its  consti- 
tuents, and  thus,  in  the  course  of  one  generation,  a  greater 
number  of  French  words  were  introduced  into  English  verse, 
and  initiated  as  lawful  members  of  the  poetical  guild,  than  in 
the  nearly  three  centuries  which  had  elapsed  since  the  Norman 
Conquest.  The  foreign  matter  became  thoroughly  assimilated 
nutriment  to  the  speech,  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  frag- 
mentary peoples  who  had  now  combined  in  an  entire  organized 
commonwealth,  and  though  the  newly  adopted  Komance  words 
were  not  indigenous,  yet  they  were  acknowledged  and  felt  to  be 
as  genuine  English,  as  those  whose  descent  from  the  Grothic 
stock  was  most  unequivocal. 

Epictetus  observes,  that  the  sheep,  though  it  eats  grass,  pro- 
duces not  hay  but  wool.  So  English  writers  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  though  they  derived  their  chief  intellectual  food  from 
the  fields  of  Eomance  literature,  conceived,  nevertheless,  original 
thoughts,  imposed  new  shades  and  distinctions  of  meaning  on 
the  words  they  borrowed,  coloured  with  new  hues  the  images 
drawn  from  nature  and  the  reflections  prompted  by  the  special 
forms  and  conditions  of  English  life,  and  thus  created  a  new 
literary  substance,  which  soon  became  a  distinct  and  indepen- 
dent individuality  in  the  world  of  letters. 

It  is  a  great,  but  very  widely  spread  error,  to  suppose  that 
the  influx  of  French  words  in  the  fourteenth  century  was  due 
alone  to  poetry  and  other  branches  of  pure  literature.  The 
law,  which  now  first  became  organized  into  a  science,  introduced 
very  many  terms  borrowed  from  the  nomenclature  of  Latin  and 
French  jurisprudence ;  the  glass-worker,  the  enameller,  the  archi- 


Lect.  VI.  VOCABULARY   OF  PROSE  267 

teet,  the  brass-founder,  the  Flemish  clothier,  and  the  other  handi- 
craftsmen, whom  Norman  taste  and  luxury  invited,  or  domestic 
oppression  expelled  from  the  Continent,  brought  with  them  the 
vocabularies  of  their  respective  arts ;  and  Mediterranean  com- 
merce —  which  was  stimulated  by  the  demand  for  English  wool, 
then  the  finest  in  Europe  —  imported,  from  the  harbours  of  a 
sea  where  French  was  the  predominant  language,  both  new 
articles  of  merchandize  and  the  French  designations  of  them. 

The  sciences  too,  medicine,  physics,  geograph}^,  alchemy, 
astrology,  all  of  which  became  known  to  England  chiefly  through 
French  channels,  added  numerous  specific  terms  to  the  existing 
vocabulary,  and  very  many  of  the  words,  first  employed  in 
English  writings  as  a  part  of  the  technical  phraseology  of  these 
various  arts  and  knowledges,  soon  passed  into  the  domain  of 
common  life,  in  modified  or  unteclmical  senses,  and  thus 
became  incorporated  into  the  general  tongue  of  society  and 
of  books. 

The  poets,  so  far  from  corrupting  English  by  a  too  large 
infusion  of  French  words,  were  in  truth  reserved  in  the  em- 
ployment of  such,  and,  when  not  constrained  by  the  necessities 
of  rhyme,  evidently  preferred,  if  not  a  strictly  Anglo-Saxon 
diction,  at  least  a  dialect  composed  of  words  which  use  had 
already  familiarized  to  the  English  people. 

The  truth  of  this  position,  which  has  been  overlooked  in  the 
great  mass  of  uncritical  animadversion  on  the  English  language 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  will  be  at  once  made  apparent  by 
an  examination  of  the  dialect  of  the  prose  writers  of  that  era, 
and  of  those  poems  w^hich  are  addressed  to  the  least  refined 
classes,  and  employ  the  least  ornate  and  most  simple  and  intel- 
ligible diction. 

As  this  is  an  unfamiliar  view  of  the  subject,  and  as  it  is  a 
point  of  interest  and  importance  in  the  history  of  English 
philology,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  devote  a  little  time  and 
space  to  the  special  consideration  of  it.  Sir  John  Mandeville 
is  generally  considered  the  earliest  prose  writer  of  the  second 


268  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  Lrxr.  VI. 

period  of  English  literature  and  philology.  Mandeville  left  Eng- 
land in  the  year  1322,  and  spent  many  years  in  travel,  principally 
in  Oriental  countries.  After  his  return  to  his  native  land,  he 
drew  up,  in  the  year  1356,  an  account  of  his  observations,  in 
Latin,  and,  to  use  his  own  words,  ^  put  this  boke  out  of  Latyn 
into  Frensche,  and  translated  it  agen  out  of  Frensche  into 
Englyssche,  that  every  man  of  my  Nacioun  may  under- 
stande  it.'  * 

The  manuscripts  of  Mandeville,  in  the  three  languages  in 
which  his  travels  appeared,  are  so  numerous  that  Halliwell 
says:  *I  will  undertake  to  say  that,  of  no  book,  with  the  exqep- 
tion  of  the  Scriptures,  can  more  manuscripts  be  found,  of  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  and  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  centuries,' 
and  there  are  no  less  than  nineteen  copies  in  the  British 
Museum  alone.  Six  of  these  are  in  English,  and  there  are  few 
great  public  or  private  libraries  in  England  which  do  not  con- 
tain one  or  more  manuscripts  of  this  author,  in  the  vernacular 
tongue.  This  fact  proves  a  very  wide  circulation  of  the  book, 
and  of  course  that  its  dialect  was  readily  intelligible  to  the  great 
mass  of  English-speaking  people.  Although  the  style  and 
grammatical  structure  of  Mandeville  are  idiomatic,  yet  the  pro- 
portion of  words  of  Latin  and  French  origin  employed  by  him, 
in  his  straightforward,  unpoetical,  and  unadorned  narrative,  is 

*  Careless  readers  of  Mandeville  have  often  understood  him  as  representing 
that  he  spent  the  interval  between  1322  and  1356  abroad.  But  this  he  does  not 
say.  After  stating,  p.  315  of  the  reprint  of  1839,  that  he  'departed  from  oure 
Contrees  and  passed  the  See,  the  Zeer  of  Grace  1322,'  he  adds,  '  now  I  am 
comen  horn  (mawgree  my  self)  to  reste ;  for  Gowtes,  Artetykes,  that  me  distrey- 
nen,  tho  diffynen  the  ende  of  my  labour,  azenst  my  wille  (God  knowethe).  And 
thus  takyngo  Solace  in  my  wrecched  reste,  recordynge  the  tyme  passed,  I  have 
fulfilled  theise  thinges  and  putte  hem  wryten  in  this  boke,  as  it  wolde  come  in  to 
my  mynde,  the  Zeer  of  Grace  1356  in  the  34  Zeer  that  I  departede  from  oure 
Contrees.' 

If  Mandeville  had  not  spent  a  considerable  time  in  England  after  his  return, 
and  before  writing  his  travels,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  his  English  should  have 
been  so  idiomatic.  An  absence  of  thirty-four  years,  at  a  period  when  the  English 
language  was  in  so  unstable  a  state,  would  have  left  him  far  behind  the  actual 
condition  of  the  speech  at  his  return. 


Lect.  VI.  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  269 

greater  than  that  found  in  the  works  of  Langlande,  Chaucer, 
Gower,  or  any  other  English  poet  of  that  century.  In  the 
Prologue,  which,  besides  proper  names  and  Latin  quotations, 
contains  something  less  than  twelve  hundred  words,  more  than 
one  hundred  and  thirty,  or  eleven  per  cent.,  are  of  Latin  or 
French  origin,  and  of  these,  the  following  thirty  are  new  to 
English,  or  at  least  not  found  in  the  printed  literature 
of  the  preceding  century: — assembly,  because,  comprehend, 
conquer,  certain,  environ,  excellent,  former  (noun),  frailty, 
glorious,  glory,  inflame,  inumber  (inumbrate),  moisten,  nation, 
people,  philosopher,  plainly,  proclaim,  promise,  pronounce, 
province,  publish,  reconcile,  redress,  subject,  temporal,  translate, 
trespasser,  visit.  The  new  words  are  relatively  more  numerous 
in  the  Prologue,  than  in  the  rest  of  the  work,  but  the  Latin  and 
Eomance  are  not  in  larger  proportion  than  in  the  narrative 
generally.  I  find,  however,  in  chapters  i.,  ii.,  iii.,  xxi.,  xxii., 
the  following  words  of  that  character,  which  are  not  in 
Coleridge's  Griossarial  Index :  —  abstain,  abundant,  ambassador, 
anoint,  apparel,  appear,  appraize,  array,  attendance,  benefice, 
benignly,  bestial,  calculation,  cause,  chaplet,  cherish,  circum- 
cision, claim,  clarte  (light),  command  (verb),  comparison,  con- 
tinually, contrarious,  contrary,  convenient,  convert,  corner, 
cover  (in  the  present  sense),  cruelty,  cubit,  curiously,  date, 
defend  (forbid),  degree,  deny,  deprive,  desert  (waste),  devoutly, 
diaper,  discordant,  discover,  disfigured,  dispend,  dissever,  diver- 
sity, duchy,  enemy,  enforce,  engender,  estate,  estimation,  ex- 
amine, faithfully,  fertre  (a  litter,  Lat.  feretrum),  fiercely, 
fornication,  foundation,  generation,  governance,  gum,  idol, 
immortal,  imprint,  incline,  inspiration,  join,  joncs  (rushes), 
letters  (alphabetic  characters),  lineage,  marquis,  menace, 
minstrelsy,  money,  monster,  mortal,  multitude,  necessary, 
obedient,  obeissant,  obstacle,  officer,  opinion,  ordinance,  ordi- 
nately,  orient,  ostrich,  outrageously,  paper,  pasture,  pearl,  perch 
(a  pole),  perfectly,  profitable,  promise  (noun),  proper  (own), 
province,  purple,  quantity,  rebellion,  receive,  region,  relatioD, 


270  SIR  JOHN   MANDEYILLE  Lect.  VI. 

religious,  return,  reverend,  royally,  royalty,  rudely,  sacrament, 
science,  search,  scripture,  servitor,  signification,  simony,  soldier, 
solemn,  specialty,  spiritual,  stranger,  subjection,  superscription, 
table,  temporal,  testament,  throne  (verb),  tissue,  title  (in- 
scription), title  (right),  unction,  usury,  value,  vary,  vaulted, 
vessel,  vicar,  victory,  vulture  ;  one  hundred  and  forty-four  in  all. 
We  find,  then,  in  the  Prologue  and  these  five  chapters,  which 
make  about  an  eighth  of  the  volume,  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  Latin  and  Romance  words,  not  met  with  in  the  printed 
literature  of  the  thirteenth  century.  If  we  suppose  the  re- 
mainder of  the  book  to  contain  as  many  in  proportion,  we 
should  have,  in  a  single  work  of  one  writer,  an  addition  of 
about  fourteen  hundred  words  of  the  Latin  stock  to  the  voca- 
bulary of  the  previous  century.  It  is  indeed  probable  that  the 
unexamined  chapters  of  Mandeville  might  yield  fewer  new 
words,  but  as  other  authors  of  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century  contain  many  vocables  not  found  in  that  writer,  we 
are  certainly  safe  in  saying  that  between  1300  and  1350  as 
many  Latin  and  French  words  were  introduced  into  the  English 
language  as  in  the  whole  period  of  more  than  two  centuries 
which  had  elapsed  between  the  Conquest  and  the  beginning  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 

It  was,  then,  the  common  necessities  of  the  people,  the 
essential  deficiencies  of  the  remnant  of  Anglo-Saxon,  which 
now  constituted  the  vernacular  of  England  —  and  which,  in  its 
debased  estate,  had  lost  its  character  of  a  flexible,  an  expressive 
and  a  multifarious  speech — that  occasioned  the  incorporation  of 
so  many  Eomance  words  into  the  English  language ;  and  poetry 
is  guiltless  of  the  charge  of  having  corrupted  the  simplicity  and 
purity  of  the  native  tongue. 

The  English  of  Mandeville,  with  few  exceptions,  belongs  to  a 
more  advanced  stage  of  progress  than  that  of  Robert  of  Grlou- 
cester,  and  the  proportion  of  Romance  words  in  the  English 
vocabulary  seems  to  have  been  suddenly  increased  in  our 
author's  time,  and  in  all  probability  more  by  the  popularity  of 


Lect.  VI.  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  271 

his  works,  than  by  the  influence  of  any  other  writer  of  that 
century. 

Although  the  dialect  of  Mandeville  exhibits  the  language, 
upon  the  whole,  in  a  more  developed  phase  than  the  works  of  any 
preceding  author,  there  is  otherwise  nothing  in  his  volume 
which  marks  him  as  an  Englishman.  It  is  purely  a  record  of 
observations,  and  a  detail  of  information  gathered  from  other 
sources.  It  possesses  no  national  tone  of  colouring,  and  the 
Latin  and  French  texts  might  equally  well  have  been  written 
by  a  subject  of  the  French  or  of  the  English  crown.  The 
immense  popularity  of  Mandeville,  and  the  influence  his 
writings  probably  produced  upon  the  language,  justify  me  in 
giving  fuller  extracts  from  his  travels  than  can  be  afforded  for 
authors  whose  philological  importance  is  less,  though  their 
literary  merits  may  be  greater. 

THE   PROLOGUE. 

For  als  moche  as  the  Lond  bezonde  the  See,  that  is  to  seye,  the 
Holy  Lond,  that  Men  callen  the  Lond  of  Promyssioun,  or  of  Beheste, 
passynge  alle  othere  Londes,  is  the  most  worthi  Lond,  most  excellent, 
and  Lady  and  Sovereyn  of  alle  othere  Londes,  and  is  blessed  and  hal- 
ewed  of  the  precyous  Body  and  Blood  of  oure  Lord  Jesu  Crist ;  in  the 
whiche  Lond  it  lykede  him  to  take  Flesche  and  Blood  of  the  Virgyne 
Marie,  to  envyrone  that  holy  Lond  with  his  blessede  Feet ;  and  there 
he  wolde  of  his  blessednesse  enoumbre  him  in  the  seyd  blessed  and 
gloriouse  Virgine  Marie,  and  become  Man,  and  worche  many  Myracles, 
and  preche  and  teche  the  Feythe  and  the  Lawe  of  Cristene  Men  imto 
his  Children  ;  and  there  it  lykede  him  to  suifre  many  Reprevinges  and 
Scornes  for  us ;  and  he  that  was  Kyng  of  Hevene,  of  Eyr,  of  Erthe,  of 
See  and  of  alle  thingeS  that  ben  conteyned  in  hem,  wolde  alle  only  ben 
cleped  Kyng  of  that  Lond,  whan  he  seyde,  Rex  sum  Jiideorum,  that  is 
to  seyne,  /  am  Kyng  of  Jewes ;  and  that  Lond  he  chees  before  alle  other 
Londes,  as  the  beste  and  most  worthi  Lond,  and  the  most  vertuoiise 
Lond  of  alle  the  World :  For  it  is  the  Herte  and  the  myddes  of  all  the 
World ;  wytnessynge  the  Philosophere,  that  scythe  thus ;  Virtus  rerum 
in  medio  consistit:  That  is  to  seye,  The  Vcrtue  of  thinges  is  in  the  myd- 
des ;  and  in  that  Lond  he  wolde  lede  his  Lyf,  and  suffre  Passioun  and 


272  SIR  JOHN   MANDEYILLE  Lect.  VI. 

Dethe,  of  Jewes,  for  us ;  for  to  bye  and  to  delyvere  us  from  Peynes  of 
Helle,  and  from  Dethe  withouten  cnde  ;  the  whiche  was  ordeyned  for 
us,  for  the  Synne  of  oiire  formere  Fader  Adam,  and  for  oure  owne 
Synnes  also :  For  as  for  himself,  he  hadde  non  evylle  deserved :  For  he 
thoughte  nevere  evylle  ne  dyd  evylle :  And  he  that  was  Kyng  of  Glorie 
and  of  Joye,  myghten  best  in  that  Place  suiFre  Dethe ;  because  he  dies 
in  that  Lond,  rathere  than  in  ony  othere,  there  to  suffre  his  Passioun 
and  his  Dethe  :  For  he  that  wil  pupplische  ony  thing  to  make  it  openly 
knowen,  he  wil  make  it  to  ben  cryed  and  pronounced  in  the  myddel 
place  of  a  Town ;  so  that  the  thing  that  is  proclamed  and  pronounced, 
may  evenly  strecche  to  alle  Parties :  Eighte  so,  he  that  was  formyour 
of  alle  the  World,  wolde  suffre  for  us  at  Jerusalem ;  that  is  the  myddes 
of  the  World ;  to  that  ende  and  entent,  that  his  Passioun  and  his  Dethe, 
that  was  pupplischt  there,  myghte  ben  knowen  evenly  to  alle  the  Parties 
of  the  World.  See  now  how  dere  he  boughte  Man,  that  he  made  after 
his  owne  Ymage,  and  how  dere  he  azen  boghte  us,  for  the  grete  Love 
that  he  hadde  to  us,  and  we  nevere  deserved  it  to  him.  For  more  pre- 
cyous  Catelle  ne  gretter  Eansoum,  ne  myghte  he  put  for  us,  than  his 
blessede  Body,  his  precyous  Blood,  and  his  holy  Lyf,  that  he  thralled 
for  us ;  and  alle  he  offred  for  us,  that  nevere  did  Synne.  A  dere  God, 
what  Love  hadde  he  to  us  his  Subjettes,  whan  he  that  nevere  trespaced, 
wolde  for  Trespassours  suffre  Dethe  !  Eighte  wel  oughte  us  for  to  love 
and  worschipe,  to  drede  and  serven  suche  a  Lord ;  and  to  worschipe 
and  preyse  suche  an  holy  Lond,  that  broughte  forthe  suche  Fruyt, 
thorghe  the  whiche  every  Man  is  saved,  but  it  be  his  owne  defaute. 
Wel  may  that  Lond  be  called  dely  table  and  a  fructuous  Lond,  that  was 
bebledd  and  moysted  with  the  precyouse  Blode  of  oure  Lord  Jesu  CriSt ; 
the  whiche  is  the  same  Lond,  that  oure  Lord  behighten  us  in  Heritage. 
And  in  that  Lond  he  wolde  dye,  as  seised,  for  to  leve  it  to  us  his  Child- 
ren. Wherfore  every  gode  Cristene  Man,  that  is  of  Powere,  and  hathe 
whereof,  scholde  peynen  him  with  all  his  Strengthe  for  to  conquere 
oure  righte  Heritage,  and  chacen  out  alle  the  mysbeleevynge  Men.  For 
wee  ben  clept  Cristene  Men,  aftre  Crist  our  Fadre.  And  zif  wee  ben 
righte  Children  of  Crist,  we  oughte  for  to  chalenge  the  Heritage,  that 
oure  Fadre  lafte  us,  and  do  it  out  of  hethene  Mennes  hondes.  But 
nowe  Pryde,  Covetyse  and  Envye  han  so  enflawmed  the  Hertes  of 
Lordes  of  the  World,  that  thei  are  more  besy  for  to  disherite  here 
Neyghbores,  more  than  for  to  chalenge  or  to  conquere  here  righte  He- 
ritage before  seyd.  And  the  comoun  Peple,  that  wolde  putte  here 
Bodyes  and  here  Catelle,  for  to  conquere  oure  Heritage,  thei  may  not 
don  it  withouten  the  Lordes.     Far  a  semblee  of  Peple  withouten  a 


Lect.  VI.  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  273 

Cheventejm,  or  a  chief  Lord,  is  as  a  Flock  of  Sclieep  withouten  a  Scliep- 
perde ;  the  which  departeth  and  desparpleth,  and  wyten  never  whidre 
to  go.  But  wolde  God,  that  the  temporel  Lordes  and  alle  worldly 
Lordes  weren  at  gode  -accord,  and  with  the  comen  Peple  woulden  taken 
this  holy  Viage  over  the  See.  Thanne  I  trowe  wel,  that  within  a  lityl 
tyme,  oure  righte  Heritage  before  seyd  scholde  be  reconsyled  and  put 
in  the  Hondes  of  the  righte  Heires  of  Jesu  Crist. 

And  for  als  moche  as  it  is  longe  tyme  passed,  that  ther  was  no  gene- 
ralle  Passage  ne  Vyage  over  the  See ;  and  many  Men  desiren  for  to 
here  speke  of  the  holy  Lond,  and  han  thereof  gret  Solace  and  Comfort ; 
I  John  Maundevylle,  Knyght,  alle  be  it  I  be  not  worthi,  that  was  born 
in  Englond,  in  the  Town  of  Seynt  Albones,  passed  the  See,  in  the  Zeer 
of  our  Lord  Jesu  Crist  MCCCXXII,  in  the  Day  of  Seynt  Michelle ; 
and  hidre  to  have  ben  longe  time  over  the  See,  and  have  seyn  and  gon 
thorghe  manye  dyverse  Londes,  and  many  Provynces  and  Kyngdomes 
and  lies,  and  have  passed  thorghe  Tartarye,  Percye,  Ermonye  the  lit' 
ylle  and  the  grete;  thorghe  Lybye,  Caldee  and  a  gret  partie  of  Ethiope; 
thorghe  Amazoyne,  Inde  the  lasse  and  the  more,  a  gi-et  partie ;  and 
thorghe  out  many  othere  lies,  that  ben  abouten  Inde ;  where  dwellen 
many  dyverse  Folkes,  and  of  dyverse  Maneres  and  Lawes,  and  of  dyverse 
Schappes  of  Men.  Of  whiche  Londes  and  lies,  I  schalle  speke  more 
pleynly  hereaflre.  And  I  schalle  devise  zou  sum  partie  of  thinges  that 
there  ben,  whan  time  schalle  ben,  aftre  it  may  best  come  to  my  mynde; 
and  specyally  for  hem,  that  wylle  and  are  in  purpos  for  to  visite  the 
Holy  Citee  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  holy  Places  that  are  thereaboute. 
And  I  schalle  telle  the  Weye,  that  thei  schulle  ,holden  thidre.  For  I 
have  often  tymes  passed  and  ryden  the  way,  with  gode  Companye  of 
many  Lordes :  God  be  thonked. 

And  zee  schulle  undirstonde,  that  I  have  put  this  Boke  out  of  Latyn 
into  Frensche,  and  translated  it  azen  out  of  Frensche  into  Englyssche, 
that  every  Man  of  my  Nacioun  may  undirstonde  it.  But  Lordes  and 
Knyghtes  and  othere  noble  and  worthi  Men,  that  conne  Latyn  but 
litylle,  and  han  ben  bezonde  the  See,  knowen  and  undirstonden,  zif  I 
erre  in  devisynge,  for  forzetynge,  or  elles ;  that  thei  mowe  redresse  it 
and  amende  it.  For  thinges  passed  out  of  longe  tyme  from  a  Mannes 
mynde  or  from  his  syght,  turnen  sone  into  forzetynge :  Because  that 
Mynde  of  Man  ne  may  not  ben  comprehended  ne  witheholden,  for  the 
Freeltee  of  Mankynde. 

FiioM  pp.  137-139. 

And  therfore  I  schalle  telle  zou,  what  the  Soudan  tolde  me  upon  a 
day,  in  his  Chambre.     He  leet  voyden  out  of  his  Chambre  alle  maner 

T 


274  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE  Lect.  VI. 

of  men,  Lordes  and  othere:  for  he  wolde  speke  witli  me  in  Conseille. 
And  there  he  askede  me,  how  the  Cristene  men  governed  hem  in  cure 
Contree.  And  I  seyde  him,  Righte  wel :  thonked  be  God.  And  he 
seyde  me,  Treulyche,  nay:  for  zee  Cristene  men  ne  recthen  righte 
noghte  how  mitrewly  to  serve  God.  Ze  scholde  zeven  ensample  to  the 
lewed  peple,  for  to  do  wel;  and  zee  zeven  hem  ensample  to  don  evylle. 
For  the  Comownes,  upon  festyfulle  dayes,  whan  thei  scholden  gon  to 
Chirche  to  serve  God,  than  gon  thei  to  Tavernes,  and  ben  there  in  glo- 
tony,  alle  the  day  and  alle  nyghte,  and  eten  and  drynken,  as  Bestes 
that  have  no  resoun,  and  wite  not  whan  thei  have  y  now.  And  also 
the  Cristene  men  enforcen  hem,  in  alle  maneres  that  thei  mowen,  for  to 
fighte,  and  for  to  desceyven  that  on  that  other.  And  there  with  alle 
thei  ben  so  proude,  that  thei  knowen  not  how  to  ben  clothed;  now 
long,  now  schort,  now  streyt,  now  large,  now  swerded,  now  daggered, 
and  in  alle  manere  gyses.  Thei  scholden  ben  symple,  meke  and  trcAve, 
and  fulle  of  Almes  dede,  as  Jhesu  was,  in  whom  thei  trowe :  but  thei 
ben  alle  the  contrarie,  and  evere  enclyned  to  the  Evylle,  and  to  don 
evylle.  And  thei  ben  so  coveytous,  that  for  a  lytylle  Sylver,  thei  sel- 
len  here  Doughtres,  here  Sustres  and  here  owne  Wyfes,  to  putten  hem 
to  Leccherie.  And  on  with  drawethe  the  Wif  of  another :  and  non  of 
hem  holdethe  Feythe  to  another :  but  thei  defoulen  here  Lawe,  that 
Jhesu  Crist  betook  hem  to  kepe,  for  here  Salvacioun.  And  thus  for 
here  Synnes,  han  thei  lost  alle  this  Lond,  that  wee  holden.  For,  for 
hire  Synnes  here  God  hathe  taken  hem  in  to  oure  Hondes,  noghte  only 
be  Strengthe  of  our  self,  but  for  here  Synnes.  For  wee  knowen  wel  in 
verry  sothe,  that  whan  zee  serve  God,  God  wil  helpe  zou :  and  whan 
he  is  with  zou,  no  man  may  be  azenst  you.  And  that  knowe  we  wel, 
be  oure  Prophecyes,  that  Cristene  men  schulle  wynnen  azen  this  Lond 
out  of  oure  Hondes,  whan  thei  serven  God  more  devoutly.  But  als 
longe  als  thei  ben  of  foule  and  of  unclene  Lyvynge,  (as  thei  ben  noAv) 
wee  have  no  drede  of  hem,  in  no  kynde :  for  here  God  wil  not  helpen 
hem  in  no  wise.  And  than  I  asked  him,  how  he  knew  the  State  of 
Cristene  men.  And  he  answerde  me,  that  he  knew  alle  the  state  of  the 
Comounes  also,  be  his  Messangeres,  that  he  sente  to  alle  Londes,  in 
manere  as  thei  weren  Marchauntes  of  precyous  Stones,  of  Clothes  of 
Gold  and  of  othere  thinges;  for  to  knowen  the  manere  of  every  Contree 
amonges  Cristene  men.  And  than  he  leet  clepe  in  alle  the  Lordes,  that 
he  made  voyden  first  out  of  his  Chambre ;  and  there  he  schewed  me  4, 
that  weren  grete  Lordes  in  the  Contree,  that  tolden  me  of  my  Contree, 
and  of  many  othere  Cristene  Contrees,  als  wel  as  thei  had  ben  of  the 
same  Contree :  and  thei  spak  Frensche  righte  wel ;  and  the  Sowdan 


Lect.  VI.  POLITICAL   CONDITION   OF  ENGLAND  275 

also,  where  of  I  had  gret  Marvaylle.  Alias !  that  it  is  gret  sclaundre  to 
oure  Feythe  and  to  oure  Lawe,  whan  folk  that  ben  with  outen  Lawe, 
schuUe  repreven  us  and  undernemen  ns  of  oure  Synnes.  And  thei  that 
scholden  ben  converted  to  Crist  and  to  the  Lawe  of  Jhesu,  be  oure  gode 
Ensamples  and  be  oure  acceptable  Lif  to  God,  and  so  converted  to  the 
Lawe  of  Jhesu  Crist,  ben  thorghe  oure  Wykkednesse  and  evylle  ly vynge, 
fer  fro  us  and  Straungeres  fro  the  holy  and  verry  Beleeve,  schulle  thus 
appelen  us  and  holden  us  for  wykkede  Lyveres  and  cui-sed.  And  treuly 
thei  sey  sothe.  For  the  Sarazines  ben  gode  and  feythfulle.  For  thei 
kepen  entierly  the  Comaundement  of  the  Holy  Book  Alkaron,  that  God 
sente  hem  be  his  Messager  Machomet ;  to  the  whiche,  as  thei  seyne, 
seynt  Gabrielle  the  Aungel  often  tyme  tolde  the  wille  of  God. 

Although  the  diction  of  Mandeviile  shows  that  the  English 
language  had  made  a  rapid  advance  within  a  few  years,  and  had 
acquired  great  compass  and  flexibility  of  expression,  the  hour 
for  a  truly  national  literature  had  not  yet  struck.  But  it  was 
nigh  at  hand,  and  the  blind  straggles  of  the  yet  unconscious 
English  intellect,  and  the  material  and  social  wants  of  the 
English  people,  were  preparing  a  fitter  medium  to  embody  it, 
whenever  English  genius  should  be  ready  to  incarnate  itself  in 
a  new  and  original  form.  The  slow  and  hard-won  concessions, 
which  now  the  nobles,  now  the  burgesses  or  civic  populations, 
and  now,  to  some  extent,  the  rustic  classes,  had  extorted  from  a 
succession  of  despotic  kings,  and  the  gradual  amalgamation  of 
the  indigenous  and  the  foreign  element,  had  at  length  created  a 
'people,  by  which  term  is  meant,  in  modern  political  language, 
an  independent  body  of  freemen,  born,  every  man,  to  the  en- 
joyment of  life,  personal  liberty,  the  ownership  of  self,  and  the 
use,  control,  and  disposal  of  the  fruits  of  his  own  labour.*    The 

*  I  am  aware  that  serfdom  or  villenage  existed  in  England  to  a  considerably 
later  period  than  the  fourteenth  century ;  but  the  villeins  apparently  did  not  form 
a  great  proportion  of  the  population.  The  nation  was  not  divided,  as  in  some 
European  states,  into  nobles,  burgesses,  and  serfs,  but  there  was  a  very  numerous 
class  of  rural  tillers  of  the  soil,  and  even  of  gentry,  who  were,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  personally  as  free  as  the  commonalty  of  England  is  at  this  day.  The. 
rural  commoners  and  the  burgesses  far  outnumbered  aU  other  ranks,  and  con- 
stituted the  real  people  of  England. 

T  2 


276  OLD    POETICAL   FORMS  Lect.  VI. 

union  of  such  a  people  with  the  governing  dynasty  or  class, 
whether  hereditary  or  elective,  constitutes  a  nation;  and  any 
aggregation  of  masters  and  serfs,  any  political  society  without  a 
general  community  of  rights  and  interests,  under  whatever  form 
of  governmental  organization,  composes  a  horde  of  brutal  lords 
and  brutified  thralls,  not  a  civilized  commonwealth,  a  people  or 
a  nation. 

To  this  condition  of  political  and  social  progress  England  had 
now  arrived.  It  was  a  new  society,  with  a  new  language,  a  new 
character,  new  wants,  tastes  and  sentiments,  and  was,  therefore, 
just  in  the  position  to  receive  and  to  inspire  a  new  literature,  as 
the  expression  of  a  new  and  vigorous  national  life. 

But  although,  from  this  moment,  the  productions  of  native 
genius  are  marked  by  peculiarities  never  before  manifested  on 
Enolish  soil,  and  which  have  since  continued  to  characterize  all 
succeeding  English  literature,  yet  the  old  forms  of  composition, 
the  conventional  laws  and  restraints  under  which  alone  poetry 
had  hitherto  existed,  were  not  at  once  (some  of  them  never  have 
been)  discarded.  The  vocabulary,  indeed,  had  become  strongly 
tinged  with  an  infusion  of  Eomance  words,  but,  though  the 
process  of  appropriation  and  assimilation  of  this  foreign  material 
was  still  going  on,  there  were  symptoms  of  a  reaction  in  fa- 
vour of  obsolete  or  at  least  obsolescent  Saxon  philological  and 
poetical  canons.  Early  English  poetry  divided  itself  into  two 
schools,  both  employing  the  same  vocabulary  but  in  different 
forms  of  composition.  The  one  followed  Continental  models  in 
literature,  the  other  sought  to  recommend  itself  to  the  taste 
and  character  of  the  more  numerous  part  of  the  population,  by 
reviving  the  laws  of  Saxon  verse,  some  remains  of  which  still 
lingered  in  the  memory  of  the  common  people. 

The  Saxon  alliterative  and  rhythmical  verse  was  especially 
suited  to  a  language  abounding  in  monosyllables,  with  feW" 
prefixes,  and  with  a  principal  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  which 
was  also  usually  the  radical.  Rhyme  and  metre  are  adapted 
to  tongues  with  longer  words,  and  with  an  accentual  system 


Lect.  VI.  LAWRENCE   MINOT  277 

which  throws  the  stress  of  voice  towards  the  end,  rather  than 
the  beginning,  of  the  word.  The  system  of  versification,  be- 
longing to  the  language  which  furnished  the  words  expressive 
of  the  new  ideas  and  new  conditions  that  formed  the  dis- 
tinguishing element  of  the  new  nationality,  could  not  but  finally 
prevail ;  and,  after  a  short  struggle,  Anglo-Saxon  versification 
yielded  to  the  superior  fitness  of  Eomance  metres  for  the  pre- 
sent tendencies  of  English  genius,  just  as  the  character  and 
institutions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  people  had  yielded  to  the  more 
energetic  life  and  higher  culture  of  the  Norman. 

The  poems  of  Laurence  Minot,  which  date  a  little  after  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  are  interesting  as  an  attempt 
to  unite  the  Saxon  characteristic  of  alliteration,  not  merely 
with  rhyme,  but  with  poetic  measures  both  of  verse  and  stanza 
which  properly  belonged  to  Eomance  literature.  It  was,  in- 
deed, not  the  first  experiment  of  the  kind,  but  in  almost  all 
previous  essays  the  versification  was  so  imperfect,  that  even 
when  they  imitate  the  longer  French  verses,  and,  of  course, 
contain  more  syllables  in  the  measure  than  was  usual  with  the 
Anglo-Saxon  poets,  they  are  rather  rhythmical  than  metrical. 

The  works  of  Minot  exist  only  in  a  single  manuscript,  of  a 
date  somewhat  later  than  his  own,  written  in  a  strongly  marked 
border  dialect  which  may  almost  be  called  Scotch ;  and,  there- 
fore, they  are  not  to  be  relied  upon  as  evidence  of  the  gram- 
matical progress  of  the  English  language.  They  have  much 
the  air  of  a  literary  exercitation ;  for  the  eleven  short  poems  of 
which  the  collection  consists  exhibit  specimens  of  ten  different 
metres  and  stanzas.  These  poems  are  of  interest  on  account 
of  their  versification,  and  especially  because  they  are  the  earliest 
political  verses  known  to  have  been  composed  in  this  period 
of  English  literature,  or,  indeed,  after  the  accession  of  Ed- 
ward III.  to  the  throne.  The  following  two  will  suffice  to  give 
an  idea  of  Minot's  diction  and  merits  as  a  poet :  — 


278  LAWRENCE  MINOT  Lect.  VI. 

How  Edward  the  king  come  in  Brahandy 
And  toke  homage  of  all  the  land. 

God,  that  schope  both  se  and  sand, 
Save  Edward  king  of  Ingland, 
Both  body,  saul,  and  life. 
And  grante  him  joy  withowten  strif  I 
For  mani  men  to  him  er  wroth. 
In  Fraunce  and  in  Flandres  both  ; 
For  he  defendes  fast  his  right. 
And  tharto  Jhesu  grante  him  might, 
And  so  to  do  both  night  and  day, 
That  yt  may  be  to  Goddes  pay. 

Oure  king  was  ciimen,  trely  to  tell. 
Into  Brabant  for  to  dwell ; 
The  kayser  Lowis  of  Bavere, 
That  in  that  land  than  had  no  pere, 
He,  and  als  his  sons  two. 
And  other  princes  many  mo, 
Bisschoppes  and  prelates  war  thare  fele, 
That  had  ful  mekil  werldly  wele, 
Princes  and  pople,  aid  and  jong, 
Al  that  spac  with  Duche  tung, 
All  thai  come  with  grete  honowre 
Sir  Edward  to  save  and  socoure. 
And  proferd  him,  with  all  thayre  rede. 
For  to  hald  the  kinges  stede. 

The  duke  of  Braband,  first  of  all, 
Swore,  for  thing  that  might  bifall, 
That  he  suld  both  day  and  night 
Help  sir  EdAvard  in  his  right. 
In  toun,  in  feld,  in  frith  and  fen. 
This  swore  the  duke  and  all  his  men, 
And  al  the  lordes  that  with  him  lend, 
And  tharto  held  thai  up  thaire  hend. 
Than  king  Edward  toke  his  rest 
At  Andwerp,  whare  him  liked  best ; 
And  thare  he  made  his  mone  playne, 
That  no  man  suld  say  thare  ogayne. 
His  mone,  that  was  gude  and  lele, 
Left  in  Braband  ful  mekill  dele ; 


Lect.  VI.  LAWRENCE  MINOT  279 

And  all  that  land,  untill  this  day, 
Pars  the  better  for  that  jornay. 

When  Philip  the  Valas  herd  of  this, 
Tharat  he  was  ful  wroth  iwis  ; 
He  gert  assemble  his  barounes, 
Princes  and  lordes  of  many  tounes, 
At  Pariss  toke  thai  thaire  counsaile, 
Whilk  pointes  might  tham  most  availe ; 
And  in  all  wise  thai  tham  bithought 
To  stroy  Ingland  and  bring  to  nought. 

Schipmeii  sone  war  efler  sent, 
To  here  the  kinges  cumandment ; 
And  the  galaies  men  also, 
That  wist  both  of  wele  and  wo. 
He  cumand  than  that  men  suld  fare 
Till  Ingland,  and  for  no  thing  spare, 
Bot  brin  and  sla  both  man  and  wife, 
And  childe,  that  none  suld  pas  with  life. 

The  galay  men  held  up  thaire  handes, 
And  thanked  God  for  thir  tithandes. 

At  Ham  ton,  als  I  understand. 
Come  the  gaylayes  unto  land. 
And  ful  fast  thai  slogh  and  brend, 
Bot  noght  so  makill  als  sum  men  wend. 
For  or  thai  wened  war  thai  mett 
With  men  that  sone  thaire  laykes  lett. 
Sum  was  knokked  on  the  hevyd, 
That  the  body  thare  bilevid  ; 
Sum  lay  stareand  on  the  sternes ; 
And  sum  lay  knoked  out  their  hemes, 
Than  with  tham  was  non  other  gle, 
Bot  ful  fain  war  thai  that  might  fle. 
The  galay  men,  the  suth  to  say. 
Most  nedes  turn  another  way  ; 
Thai  soght  the  stremis  fer  and  wide, 
In  Flandres  and  in  Seland  syde. 

Than  saw  thai  whare  Cristofer  stode, 
At  Armouth,  opon  the  flude. 
Than  wen[t]  thai  theder  all  bidene, 
The  galayes  men,  with  hertes  kene, 
Viij.  and  xl.  galay s,  and  mo. 
And  with  tham  als  war  tarettes  two, 


280  LAWRENCE   MINOT  Lect.  VI. 

And  other  many  galiotes, 
With  grete  noumber  of  smale  botes ; 
,  All  thai  hcved  on  the  flode 

To  stele  sir  Edward  mens  gode. 

Edward  oiire  king  than  was  noght  there, 
But  sone,  when  it  come  to  his  ere, 
He  sembled  all  his  men  full  still, 
And  said  to  tham  what  was  his  will. 
Ilk  man  made  him  redy  then. 
So  went  the  king  and  all  his  men 
Unto  thaire  schippes  ful  hastily, 
Als  men  that  war  in  dede  doghty. 

Thai  fand  the  galay  men  grete  wane, 
A  hundereth  ever  ogaynes  ane  ; 
The  Inglis  men  put  tham  to  were 
Ful  baldly,  with  bow  and  spere ; 
Thai  slogh  thare  of  the  galaies  men 
Ever  sexty  ogaynes  ten ; 
That  sum  ligges  jit  in  that  mire 
All  hevidles,  withowten  hire.  * 

The  Inglis  men  war  armed  wele. 
Both  in  yren  and  in  stele  ; 
Thai  faght  ful  fast,  both  day  and  night, 
Als  long  as  tham  lasted  might. 
Bot  galay  men  war  so  many. 
That  Inglis  men  wex  all  wery  ; 
Help  thai  soght,  bot  thare  come  nane, 
-  Than  unto  God  thai  made  thaire  mane. 
Bot  sen  the  time  that  God  was  born, 
Ne  a  hundreth  jere  biforn. 
Was  never  men  better  in  fight 
Than  Ingliss  men,  whil  thai  had  myght. 
Bot  sone  all  maistri  gan  thai  mis ; 
God  bring  thaire  saules  untill  his  blis  I 
And  God  assoyl  tham  of  thaire  sin, 
Eor  the  gude  will  that  thai  war  in !     Amen. 

Listens  now,  and  leves  me, 
Who  so  lifes  thai  sail  se 
That  it  mun  be  ful  dere  boght 
That  thir  galay  men  have  wroght. 


Lect.  VL  LAWRENCE   MINOT  281 

Thai  hoved  still  opon  the  flode, 

And  reved  pover  men  thaire  gude ; 

Thai  robbed,  and  did  mekill  schame, 

And  aye  bare  Inglis  men  the  blame. 

Now  Jhesu  save  all  Ingland, 

And  blis  it  with  his  holy  hand !     Amen. 


How  Edward,  als  the  Romance  sais, 
Held  his  sege  hifor  Calais. 

Calais  men,  now  may  ye  care, 

And  murning  mun  je  have  to  mede ; 
Mirth  on  mold  get  je  no  mare, 

Sir  Edward  sail  ken  50W  jowre  crede. 

Whilum  war  je  wight  in  wede, 
To  robbing  rathly  for  to  ren  ; 

Men  jow  sone  of  jowre  misdede, 
jowre  care  es  cumen,  will  je  it  ken. 

Kend  it  es  how  je  war  kene 

Al  Inglis  men  with  dole  to  dere ; 
Thaire  gudes  toke  je  al  bidene. 

No  man  born  wald  je  forbere  ; 

5e  spared  noght  with  swerd  ne  spere 
To  stik  tham,  and  thaire  gudes  to  stele. 

With  wapin  and  with  ded  of  were 
Thus  have  je  wonnen  werldes  wele. 

Weleful  men  war  je  iwis  ; 

Bot  fer  on  fold  sail  ge  noght  fare. 
A  bare  sal  now  abate  ^owre  blis, 

And  wirk  jow  bale  on  bankes  bare. 

He  sail  jow  hunt,  als  hund  dose  hare, 
That  in  no  hole  sail  je  jow  hide. 

For  all  jowre  speche  will  he  noght  spare, 
Bot  bigges  him  right  by  jowre  side. 

Biside  ^ow  here  the  bare  bigins 
To  big  his  boure  in  winter  tyde ; 

And  all  bityme  takes  he  his  ines. 
With  semly  se[r]gantes  him  biside. 


282  LAWRENCE  MINOT  Lect.  VI. 

The  word  of  him  walkes  ful  wide, 
Jesu,  save  him  fro  mischance  ! 

In  bataill  dar  he  wele  habide 
Sir  Philip  and  sir  John  of  France. 

The  Franche  men  er  fers  and  fell, 

And  mase  grete  dray  when  thai  er  dight ; 
Of  tham  men  herd  slike  tales  tell, 

With  Edward  think  thai  for  to  fight, 

Him  for  to  hald  out  of  his  right, 
And  do  him  treson  with  thaire  tales. 

That  was  thaire  purpos,  day  and  night, 
Bi  counsail  of  the  cardinales. 

Cardinales,  with  hattes  rede. 

War  fro  Calays  wele  thre  myle ; 
Thai  toke  thaire  counsail  in  that  stede 

How  thai  might  sir  Edward  bigile. 

Thai  lended  thare  bot  litill  while. 
Til  Tranche  men  to  grante  thaire  grace. 

Sir  PhiHp  was  funden  a  file, 
He  fled,  and  faght  noght  in  that  place. 

In  that  place  the  bare  was  blith. 

For  all  was  funden  that  he  soght ; 
Philip  the  Valas  fled  ful  swith. 

With  the  batail  that  he  had  broght. 

For  to  have  Calays  had  he  thoght, 
All  at  his  ledeing  loud  or  still ; 

Bot  all  thaire  wiles  war  for  noght, 
Edward  wan  it  at  his  will. 

Lystens  now,  and  je  may  lere, 

Als  men  the  suth  may  understand ; 
The  knightes  that  in  Calais  were 

Come  to  sir  Edward  sare  wepeand, 

In  kirtell  one,  and  swerd  in  hand, 
And  cried,  *  Sir  Edward,  thine  [we]  are ; 

Do  now,  lord,  bi  law  of  land, 
Thi  will  with  us  for  evermare.' 


Lect.  VI.  LAWRENCE   MINOT  283 

The  nobill  burgase  and  tlie  best 

Come  unto  him  to  have  thaire  hire ; 
The  comun  piiple  war  ful  prest 

Rapes  to  bring  obout  thaire  swire. 

Thai  said  all,  '  Sir  PhilijD,  oure  syre, 
And  his  sun,  sir  John  of  France, 

Has  left  us  ligand  in  the  mire, 
And  broght  us  till  this  doleful  dance. 

*  Oure  horses,  that  war  faire  and  fat, 

Er  etin  up  ilkone  bidene  ; 
Have  we  nowther  conig  ne  cat, 

That  thai  ne  er  etin,  and  hundes  kene, 

All  er  etin  up  ful  clene, 
Es  nowther  levid  biche  ne  whelp ; 

That  es  wele  on  oure  sembland  sene  ; 
And  thai  er  fled  that  suld  us  help.' 

A  knight  that  was  of  grete  renowne, 

Sir  John  de  Viene  was  his  name, 
He  was  wardaine  of  the  toune. 

And  had  done  Ingland  mekill  schame. 

For  all  thaire  boste  thai  er  to  blame, 
Ful  stalworthly  thare  have  thai  strevyn. 

A  bare  es  cumen  to  mak  tham  tame ; 
Kayes  of  the  toun  to  him  er  gifen. 

The  kaies  er  jolden  him  of  the  Jate, 

Lat  him  noAV  kepe  tham  if  he  kun ; 
To  Calais  cum  thai  all  to  late. 

Sir  Philip  and  Sir  John  his  sun. 

Al  war  ful  ferd  that  thare  ware  fun, 
Thaire  leders  may  thai  barely  ban. 

All  on  this  wise  was  Calais  won ; 
God  save  tham  that  it  so  gat  wan. 

The  attempts  of  Minot,  and  of  other  later  as  well  as  con- 
temporaneous rhymers,  to  reconcile  the  Gothic  and  Eomance 
systems  of  verse  —  like  many  suggestions  of  compromise  on 
more  important  subjects  —  satisfied  the  partisans  of  neither 


284  ANGLO-SAXON   VERSE  Lect.  VI. 

mode  of  composition,  and  his  example  was  followed  by  no  great 
writer.  Langlande  and  his  school  adhered  strictly  to  the  Saxon 
canons.  Grower  and  Chaucer,  and  the  great  body  of  English 
poets,  preferred  Eomance  metres.  Half-way  measures  failed 
altogether.  Alliteration,  it  is  true,  was  occasionally  employed 
as  a  casual  ornament,  but  the  works  of  Langlande  and  his  im- 
mediate followers  were  the  last,  of  any  merit,  which  regularly 
conformed  to  the  canons  of  Anglo-Saxon  verse,  and  the  struggle 
ended  with  the  final  triumph  of  Romance  forms. 

The  works  of  the  English  poets  who  followed  Anglo-Saxon 
models,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  are  among 
the  most  interesting  and  important  literary  productions  of  that 
age  ;  and  hence  it  becomes  necessary  to  devote  a  moment  to  the 
metrical  or  rather  rhythmical  system  of  the  ancient  Anglian 
people,  which,  with  one  important  difference,  corresponds  to 
that  of  the  Scandinavian  and  some  of  the  Germanic  races. 
Ancient  versification  is  founded  on  temporal  quantity,  modern 
on  accentuation;  but  modern  Eomance  verse  agrees  with  the 
classical  metres  in  requiring  a  certain  number  of  syllables  to 
each  measure,  and  the  accented  syllables  are,  in  number  and 
position,  subject  to  the  same  laws  of  regularity  and  sequence 
as  the  temporally  long  syllables  in  the  classic  metres.  But  in 
the  primitive  rhythmical  poetry  of  the  Scandinavians  and  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  the  number  of  unaccented  syllables  and  the 
position  of  the  accented  ones,  were  variable,  so  that  nothing 
was  constant  but  the  number  of  these  latter.  In  the  im- 
passioned, emphatic  recitative  of  ruder  ages,  this  numerical 
regularity  might  be  a  sufiicient  formal  distinction  between 
poetry  and  prose ;  but  when  the  lay  of  the  bard  was  written 
down,  and  read,  not  chanted  or  declaimed,  it  was  soon  per- 
ceived that  something  more  was  required  to  enable  verse  to 
produce  an  agreeable  sensuous  effect  upon  the  ear.  This  was 
first  obtained  by  the  simple  expedient  of  alliteration ;  but  as  the 
poetic  ear  became  more  cultivated,  and,  of  course,  more  fas- 
tidious and  more  exacting,  other  coincidences  of  sound  were 


Lect.  VI.  ANGLO-SziXON    VEESE — ASSONANCE  285 

introduced.  The  Scandinavians  employed  line-rhyme  both  as 
half  and  as  perfect  rhyme,  that  is,  syllables  which  agreed  in  the 
consonants,  but  differed  in  the  vowels,  as  land,  lend,  fear,  fire, 
and  syllables  which  agreed  in  all  the  vocal  elements,  or  ordi- 
nary rhymes.  In  their  poetry,  these  corresponding  syllables 
occurred  not  at  the  ends  of  the  lines,  but  in  pairs  in  the  same 
line,  though,  in  the  later  stages  of  Icelandic  literature,  end- 
rhyme  was  employed  also.  This  latter  form  of  consonance  was 
sometimes  used  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  —  probably  from  an  ac- 
quaintance with  Continental  rhymes  which  the  Scandinavians 
did  not  possess,  —  but  neither  half-rhyme  nor  any  form  of  line- 
rhyme  seems  ever  to  have  been  designedly  introduced,  though 
the  Danish  and  Norwegian  bards  who  frequented  the  courts  of 
the  Saxon  kings  must  have  made  that  form  of  versification 
known  in  England. 

I  do  not  find  any  satisfactory  evidence  that  assonance,  or 
the  employment  of  the  same  vowel  with  different  consonants, 
which  characterizes  the  ballad  poetry  of  Spain,  was  resorted  to 
in  the  classic  Anglo-Saxon  period ;  but  in  the  semi-Saxon  of 
Layamon,'as  we  have  already  seen,  it  is  of  frequent  occurrence, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  it  was  intentionally  introduced.  Critics, 
however,  do  not  appear  to  have  always  recognized  this  coin- 
cidence of  sound  in  Layamon  as  true  assonance,  and  they  have 
sometimes  endeavoured  to  explain  it  by  the  gratuitous  assump- 
tion, that  syllables  spelled  with  very  different  consonants  were 
pronounced  alike,  so  as  to  make  perfect  rhymes  of  pairs  of 
words  which  are  apparently  assonant  merel)^  This  resem- 
blance of  vowel  alone  proved  too  monotonous  for  the  Northern 
ear,  which  was  trained  by  its  habitual  system  of  strong  inflec- 
tion to  demand  contrast  as  well  as  coincidence  of  syllable,  and 
the  innovation  of  Layamon  found  no  imitators. 

During  the  era  of  transition  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  the 
English  nationality  and  speech,  the  native  bards  were  imitators 
of  Norman-French  poetry,  and  the  Saxon  versification  fell  into 
almost  total  disuse,  while  nearly  every  variety  of  Eomance  verse 


286  EAKLY  ENGLISH  VEBSE  Lect.  VI. 

was  freely  employed.  But  when  the  English  people  had  under- 
gone the  last  of  their  metamorphoses,  and  appeared  as  a  new 
estate  upon  the  stage  of  human  affairs,  there  was  naturally  a 
hesitation,  a  vacillation,  with  regard  to  the  forms  in  which  the 
nascent  literature  should  clothe  itself,  and  there  were  still  con- 
flicting tendencies  and  partialities  to  be  reconciled. 

While,  therefore,  the  first  great  English  poets  were  as 
thoroughly  and  unmistakeably  national,  in  matter  and  in 
spirit,  as  the  most  marked  of  their  successors,  we  find  in 
Chaucer  only  Komance  forms  of  composition;  but  in  Langlande, 
the  author  of  Piers  Ploughman,  and  his  followers,  purely 
English  thoughts,  and  a  well  assimilated  composite  diction,  with 
the  rhythmic  and  alliterative  structure  which  characterizes 
Anglo-Saxon  verse.  It  is  remarkable,  as  I  have  elsewhere  ob- 
served, that  in  this  attempt  to  revive  those  obsolete  measures, 
Langlande  adhered  more  closely  to  the  normal  forms,  and 
allowed  himself  fewer  licenses,  than  did  the  Anglo-Saxons 
themselves;  and  his  poems  accordingly  exhibit  more  truly 
the  essential  characteristics  of  alliterative  and  rhythmical  verse 
than  any  of  the  works  of  the  masters  he  copied. 

Hence,  though  highly  original,  thoroughly  genial,  and  fully 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  of  the  commonwealth 
of  which  he  was  the  first-born  intellectual  son,  yet,  in  his 
versification,  he  was  little  better  than  a  servile  imitator.  This 
is  by  no  means  a  singular  instance  of  the  constraint  which 
the  employment  of  ancient  instrumentalities  imposes  upon  a 
modern  author.  No  scholar  of  our  day,  writing  in  Latin  prose, 
would  think  himself  safe  in  joining  together  any  two  words, 
for  the  combination  of  which  he  could  not  adduce  the  authority 
of  a  classic  example,  nor,  in  hexameters,  or  the  lyric  metres, 
would  he  venture  a  succession  of  syllables  for  which  he  could 
not  find  a  precedent  in  the  Gradus  ad  Parnassum. 

The  strife  between  the  Eomance  and  the  Saxon  forms  of 
verse  was  not  of  long  duration.  Besides  the  reasons  I  have 
already  given  for  the  triumph  of  the  former,  there  was  the 


Lfxt.  VI.  ROMANTIC    POETRY  287 

fact  that  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  was  obsolete,  unintelligible,  dead 
and  forgotten,  while  Norman-French  literature  was  still  a  living, 
a  luxuriant  and  a  fragrant  vine.  Langlande  was  the  last  of 
the  old  school  in  form,  the  first  of  the  new  in  genius  and 
spirit.  The  authors  of  Piers  Ploughman  and  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales  are  both  intensely  English ;  but  as  two  sons  of  the  same 
parentage,  while  closely  resembling  each  other,  often  reproduce, 
the  one,  the  mother's  traits,  the  other,  the  lineaments  of  the 
father,  so  Langlande  most  prominently  exhibits  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
Chaucer  the  Norman-French,  complexion  and  features  of  the 
composite  race,  which  they  so  well  represent  and  adorn. 

There  is  not  much  literary  matter  of  special  interest  or 
importance,  which  can  be  positively  assigned  to  the  period 
between  Minot  and  Langlande ;  but  there  are  numerous  versi- 
fied romances,  chiefly  translations  from  the  French,  which 
were  executed,  or  at  least  transcribed,  in  the  course  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  Most  of  these,  as  I  have  before  remarked, 
are  carelessly  copied,  and  they  are  often  stamped  with  dialectic 
peculiarities  which  certainly  belong  to  no  era  of  the  common 
literary  dialect  of  England.  They  could,  therefore,  even  if 
possessed  of  conspicuous  literary  merit,  not  well  be  employed  as 
illustrations  of  sketches  which  aim  to  give  an  outline  of  the 
progress,  not  of  the  aberrations,  of  the  English  language.  But 
they  are,  in  general,  so  worthless  in  themselves,  that  they 
would  not  repay  an  analysis,  and  I  prefer  to  limit  myself  to 
productions  which  were  either  efficient  causes,  or  normal  results 
and  exemplifications,  of  the  march  of  English  genias  and  the 
English  speech. 

The  following  poem,  written  on  a  very  important  occasion  — 
the  death  of  Edward  IIL,  in  1377  —  is  smooth  in  versification, 
and  is  a  not  unfavourable  specimen  of  the  power  of  expression 
to  which  the  language  had  attained  at  that  period :  — 


288  POEM   ON    THE    DEATH    OF    EDWARD    III.  Leci.  VI. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  EDWAKD  III.— 1377. 

A !  dere  God,  what  may  this  be, 

That  alle  thing  weres  and  wasteth  away? 
Frendschyp  is  but  a  vanyte, 

Unnethe  hit  dures  al  a  day. 

Thei  beo  so  cliper  at  assay. 
So  leof  to  han,  and  loth  to  lete, 

And  so  fikel  in  heore  fay, 
That  selden  iseije  is  sone  forjete. 

I  sei  hit  not  withouten  a  cause, 

And  therefore  takes  riht  god  hede ; 
For  jif  ye  construwe  this  clause, 

I  puit  jou  holly  out  of  drede, 

That  puire  schame  ^or  hert  wold  blede. 
And  ^e  this  matere  wysly  trete. 

He  that  was  ur  most  spede 
Is  selden  seye  and  sone  forjete. 

Sum  tyme  an  Englis  schip  we  had, 

Nobel  hit  was,  and  heih  of  tour ; 
Thorw  al  Christendam  hit  was  drad, 

And  stif  wold  stonde  in  uch  a  stour, 

And  best  dorst  byde  a  scharp  schour, 
And  other  stormes  smale  and  grete ; 

Nou  is  that  schip,  that  bar  the  flour, 
Selden  seije  and  sone  forjete. 

Into  that  schip  ther  longeth  a  roothur. 

That  steered  the  schip,  and  governed  hit  ,* 
In  al  this  world  nis  such  anothur. 

As  me  thenketh  in  my  wit. 

Whil  schip  and  rothur  togeder  was  knit, 
Thei  dredde  nother  tempest,  druyje,  nor  wete ; 

Nou  be  thei  bothe  in  synder  flit ; 
That  selden  sei^e  is  sone  forgete. 

Scharpe  wawes  that  schip  has  sayled, 

And  sayed  all  sees  at  aventur ; 
For  wynt  ne  wederes  never  hit  fayled; 

Wil  the  roothur  miht  enduir. 


Lect.  VI.  POEM   ON   THE   DEATH   OF   EDWARD   III.  289 

Thouj  the  see  were  rouj,  or  elles  dimuuir, 
Gode  havenes  tliat  scliip  wold  geete. 

Nou  is  that  schip,  I  am  wel  suir, 
Selde  iseye  and  sone  for^ete. 

This  good  schip  I  may  remene 

To  the  chivalrye  of  this  londe ; 
Sum  tyme  thei  counted  noui^t  a  bene 

Beo  al  Fraunce,  ich  understonde. 

Thei  toke  and  slouj  hem  with  her  wonde, 
The  power  of  Fraunce,  bethe  smale  and  grete ; 

And  broujt  the  kyng  hider  to  byde  her  bonde ; 
And  nou  riht  sone  hit  is  forjete. 

That  schip  hadde  a  ful  siker  mast, 

And  a  sayl  strong  and  large, 
That  make  the  gode  schip  never  agast 

To  undertake  a  thinge  of  charge. 

And  to  that  schip  ther  longed  a  barge, 
Of  al  Fraunce  jaf  noujt  a  cleete. 

To  us  hit  was  a  siker  targe ; 
And  now  riht  clene  hit  is  forjete, 


Hit  was  Edward  the  thridde  the  noble  kniht; 
The  prince  his  sone  bar  up  his  helm. 

That  never  scoumfited  was  in  fiht. 

The  kyng  him  rod  and  rouwed  ariht. 
The  prince  dredde  nouther  stok  nor  streete. 

Nou  of  hem  we  lete  ful  liht ; 
That  selden  is  seije  is  sone  forjete. 

The  swifte  barge  was  duk  Henri, 

That  noble  kniht,  and  wel  assayed ; 
And  in  his  leggaunce  worthily 

He  abod  mony  a  bitter  brayd. 

jif  that  his  enemys  oujt  outrayed, 
To  chasteis  hem  wolde  he  not  lete. 

Nou  is  that  lord  ful  lowe  ileyd ; 
That  selde  is  seije  is  sone  for^ete. 
U 


290  POEM   ON   THE   DEATH   OF   EDWARD   III.  Lect.  VI. 

This  gode  comunes,  bi  the  rode, 

I  likne  hem  to  the  schipes  mast ; 
That  with  heore  catel  and  with  heore  goode 

Mayntened  the  werre  both  furst  and  last.  y 

The  wynd  that  bleuj  the  schip  with  blast, 
Hit  was  gode  pre^eres,  I  sey  hit  atrete ; 

Nou  is  devoutnes  out  icast, 
And  mony  gode  dedes  ben  clene  for^^ete. 

Thus  ben  this  lordes  ileid  ful  lowe ; 

The  stok  is  of  the  same  rote ; 
And  ympe  biginnes  for  to  growe, 

And  git  I  hope  schal  ben  ur  bote, 

To  wolde  his  fomen  underfote, 
And  as  a  lord  be  set  in  sete. 

Crist,  lene  that  he  so  mote, 
That  selden  isei^e  be  not  forjete. 

"Weor  that  impe  ffully  growe, 

That  he  had  sarri,  sap,  and  pith, 
I  hope  he  schulde  be  knd  and  knowe 

For  conquerour  of  moni  a  kith. 

He  is  ful  livelich  in  lyme  and  litb ' 
•  In  amies  to  travayle  and  to  swete. 

Crist,  live  we  so  fare  him  with, 
That  selden  seije  be  never  forgete. 

And  therefore  holliche  I  ou  rede. 

Til  that  this  ympe  beo  fuUi  growe, 
That  uch  a  mon  up  with  the  hede. 

And  mayntene  him  bothe  heije  and  lowe. 

The  Frensche  men  cunne  bothe  host  and  blowe, 
And  with  heore  scornes  us  to-threte ; 

And  we  beoth  bothe  unkuynde  and  slowe, 
That  selden  sei^e  is  sone  forjete. 

And  therfore,  gode  sires,  taketh  reward 

Of  jor  douhti  kyng  that  deyjede  in  age. 
And  to  his  sone  prince  Edward 

That  welle  was  of  alle  corage. 


I 


Lect.  VI.  THE   SOKE   OF   CURTASYE  ^91 

Such  two  lordes  of  heije  parage 
Is  not  in  eorthe  whom  we  schal  gete. 

And  nou  heore  los  beginneth  to  swage, 
That  seMe  iseije  is  sone  for^ete. 

Another  poem  which  is  not  without  some  philological  im- 
portance, and  which  is  of  interest  for  the  light  it  throws  on  the 
manners  of  the  higher  classes  of  society  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  their  probable  mode  of  education,  is  the  Boke  of 
Curtasye,  an  edition  of  which  has  been  published  by  the  Camden 
Society.  This  is  a  species  of  School  of  good  Manners,  for  pages 
who  were  themselves  of  gentle  birth.  It  discloses  a  coarseness 
of  habits  in  the  more  elevated  classes,  strangely  contrasting 
with  the  material  luxury  which  seems,  from  other  evidence,  to 
have  prevailed  at  that  period  in  royal  and  noble  circles.  The 
Forme  of  Cury — which  is  stated  to  have  been  '  compiled  of  the 
chef  Maister  Cokes  of  kyng  Eichard  the  Secunde  kyng  of 
Englond  after  the  Conquest,'  and  which  exists  in  a  manuscript 
certainly  nearly  as  old  as  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century — 
shows  that  the  kitchens  of  its  time  were,  in  variety  and  sensual 
piquancy,  little  inferior  to  those  of  Lucullus  and  Apicius.  But 
English  luxury,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  was  confined  chiefly 
to  the  gratification  of  the  grosser  appetites ;  and  costly  and 
diversified  indulgence  of  these  by  no  means  implies  refinement 
and  elegance  of  manners  and  sentiment,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
rather  supposes  a  sensuality  of  constitution,  which  easily  degene- 
rates into  a  clownish  disregard  of  the  graceful  conventionalities, 
and  even  of  the  decencies,  of  civilized  life. 

The  Boke  of  Curtasye  is  contained  in  the  same  manuscript 
with  the  Liher  Cocorum,  a  cookery-book  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, the  publication  of  which,  as  well  as  of  others  of  the  same 
class,  Wright  suggests  as  a  desideratum.  The  vocabulary  of 
books  on  these  and  kindred  unfamiliar  subjects  is  rich  in  terms 
rarely  elsewhere  met  with,  and  they  furnish  much  information 
both  on  the  tastes  and  habits  of  mediasval  Europe,  particularly 

u  2 


292  THE  BOKE  OF  CURTASYE  Lect.  VI. 

on  a  topic  which,  though  of  profound  interest,  has  engaged  the 
attention  of  competent  scholars  less  than  almost  any  other 
branch  of  modern  history  —  the  commercial  relations  between 
the  different  European  states  and  between  Europe  and  the  East. 
The  trade  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  was  con- 
ducted on  a  larger  scale,  and  a  more  extensively  ramified  and 
more  cunningly  organized  system,  than  is  usually  suspected  by 
persons  not  familiar  with  the  chronicles,  and  more  especially 
the  non-literary  records  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  questions : 
what  were  the  articles  which  the  great  merchants  of  the  Medi- 
terranean countries  imported  from  the  East,  at  different  periods 
between  the  downfall  of  Eome  and  the  discovery  of  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope ;  by  what  mode  of  exchange  and  by  what  routes  of 
transport  did  they  obtain  them  ;  and,  above  all,  where  and  by 
what  instrumentalities  these  articles  were  distributed  —  have 
been  as  yet  but  imperfectly  answered.  Eesearches  in  that 
direction  —  which  the  throwing  open  of  secret  archives  is  so 
rapidly  facilitating  —  will  furnish  elucidations  of  many  obscure 
passages  in  early  literature,  and,  especially,  advance  our  know- 
ledge of  historical  etymology,  for  which,  linguistic  conjecture  is, 
in  very  many  departments  of  philology,  a  very  poor  substitute. 
Much  of  the  Boke  of  Curtasye  is  too  repulsive  for  quotation. 
The  following  passage  seems  to  show  that  pages  did  not  receive 
a  great  amount  of  literary  instruction,  but  it  gives  a  more 
favourable  impression  of  their  moral  training  than  the  lives  of 
their  lords  would  authorise  us  to  expect. 

YiF  that  thou  be  a  jong  enfaunt, 
And  thenke  tlio  scoles  for  to  haunt, 
This  lessoun  schulle  thy  maister  the  merke, 
Cros  Crist  the  spede  in  alle  thi  werke  ; 
Sytthen  thy  Pater  Noster  he  wille  the  teche, 
As  Cristes  ownc  postles  con  preche  ; 
After  thy  Ave  Maria  and  thi  Crede, 
That  shalle  the  save  at  dome  of  drede ; 
Thenne  aftur  to  blesse  the  with  the  Trinity, 
In  nomine  Patris  teche  he  wille  the  ; 


Lect.  VI.  THE   SOKE   OF   CURTASTE  293 

Then  with  Marke,  Mathew,  Luke,  and  Jon, 

"With  the  pro  cruce  and  the  hegh  name  ; 

To  shryve  the  in  general  thou  shalle  lere, 

Thy  conjite'or  and  misereatur  in  fere  ; 

To  seche  the  kyngdam  of  God,  my  chylde, 

Thereto  y  rede  thou  be  not  wylde. 

Therefore  worschip  God,  bothe  olde  and  Jong, 

To  be  in  body  and  soule  y-liche  strong. 

When  thou  comes  to  the  churche  dore, 

Take  the  haly  water  stondand  on  flore ; 

Rede  or  synge  or  byd  prayeris 

To  Crist,  for  alle  thy  Crysten  ferys ; 

Be  curtayse  to  God,  and  knele  doun 

On  bothe  knees  with  grete  devocioun. 

To  mon  thou  shalle  knele  opon  the  toun, 

The  tother  to  thyself  thou  halde  alone. 

When  thou  ministers  at  the  hegh  autere. 

With  bothe  hondes  thou  serve  tho  prest  in  fere, 

The  ton  to  stabuUe  the  tother, 

Lest  thou  fayle,  my  dere  brother. 

Another  curtasye  y  wylle  the  teche. 

Thy  fadur  and  modur,  with  mylde  speche, 

Thou  worschip  and  serve  with  alle  thy  my^t, 

That  thou  dwelle  the  lengur  in  erthely  lyjt. 

To  another  man  do  no  more  amys, 

Then  thou  woldys  be  done  of  hym  and  hys, 

So  Crist  thou  pleses,  and  gets  the  love 

Of  menne  and  God  that  syttes  above. 

Be  not  to  meke,  but  in  mene  the  holde, 

ffor  ellis  a  fole  thou  wylle  be  tolde. 

He  that  to  ryjtwysnes  wylle  enclyne, 

As  holy  wryjt  says  us  wele  and  iyne, 

His  sede  schalle  never  go  seche  nor  brede, 

Ne  sufFur  of  mon  no  shames  dede. 

To  forgyf  thou  shalle  the  hast, 

To  venjaunce  loke  thou  come  on  last ; 

Draw  the  to  pese  with  alle  thy  strengthe, 

ffro  stryf  and  bate  draw  the  on  lengthe. 

Yf  mon  aske  the  good  for  Goddys  sake, 

And  the  wont  thyng  wherof  to  take, 


294  THE   BOKE   OF   CURTASIE  Lect.  VI. 

Gyf  hym  bone  wordys  on  fayre  manere, 

With  glad  semblaint  and  pure  good  cher. 

Also  of  service  thou  shalle  be  fre 

To  every  mon  in  hys  degre. 

Thou  schalle  never  lose  for  to  be  kynde, 

That  on  forgets  another  hase  in  mynde. 

Yf  any  man  have  part  with  the  in  gyft, 

With  hym  thou  make  an  even  skyft ; 

Let  hit  not  henge  in  honde  for  glose, 

Thou  art  uncurtayse  yf  thou  hyt  dose. 

To  sayntes  yf  thou  thy  gate  hase  hyjt, 

Thou  schalle  fulfylle  hit  with  alle  thy  my^t, 

Lest  God  the  stryk  with  grete  venjaunce, 

And  pyt  the  into  sore  penaunce. 

Leve  not  alle  men  that  speke  the  fayre, 

Whether  that  hit  ben  comyns,  burges,  or  mayr ; 

In  swete  wordis  the  nedder  was  closet, 

Disseyvaunt  ever  and  mysloset ; 

Therfore  thou  art  of  Adams  blode, 

With  wordis  be  ware,  but  thou  be  wode ; 

A  short  worde  is  comynly  sothe, 

That  first  slydes  fro  monnes  tothe. 

Loke  lyger  never  that  thou  become, 

Kepe  thys  worde  for  alle  and  somme. 

Lawje  not  to  of  [t]  for  no  solace, 

ffor  no  kyn  myrth  that  any  man  muse ; 

Who  lawes  all  that  men  may  se, 

A  schrew  or  a  fole  hym  semes  to  be. 


LECTUEE  VII. 

THE   AUTHOR   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN   AND   HIS    IMITATORS. 

The  precise  date  of  the  poem  called  the  Vision  of  Piers 
Ploughman  is  unknown,  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  was 
given  to  the  world  between  the  years  1360  and  1370.  The 
authorship  of  the  work  is  also  matter  of  uncertainty,  and  the 
tradition  which  ascribes  it  to  Langlande,  an  English  monk,  is 
not  supported  by  conclusive  testimony.  But  a  perhaps  imaginary 
Langlande  has  long  enjoyed  the  credit  of  the  composition,  and 
until  evidence  shall  be  adduced  to  invalidate  his  possessory 
claim  and  establish  an  adverse  title,  there  can  be  no  danger  of 
doing  injustice  to  the  real  author  by  availing  ourselves  of  that 
name  as  a  convenient  impersonation  of  an  unknown  writer. 

The  familiarity  which  the  poet  displays  with  ecclesiastical 
literature  could,  in  that  age,  hardly  have  been  attained  by  any 
but  a  member  of  the  clerical  profession,  and  therefore  the  pre- 
sumption is  strong  that  he  was  a  churchman.  His  zeal  and  his 
conviction  did  not  carry  him  to  such  perilous  lengths  as  were 
hazarded  by  Wycliffe  and  his  school,  but  he  was  a  forerunner  in 
the  same  path,  and  though  we  know  nothing  of  his  subsequent 
history,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  ultimately  arrived  at  the 
same  results. 

The  author  of  Piers  Ploughman  was  evidently  well  acquainted 
with  the  Latin  poems  ascribed  to  Walter  de  Mapes,  written 
chiefly  in  the  previous  century,  and  of  which  I  have  been  unable 
to  take  notice  in  this  succinct  view  of  early  English  literature, 
because,  having  been  composed  in  Latin,  they  cannot  properly 


296  PIEES  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.   VII. 

be  included  in  a  historical  sketch  of  English  philology.  But 
though  there  are  passages  in  Piers  Ploughman,  which,  if  they 
stood  alone,  might  be  considered  as  directly  borrowed  from 
Mapes,  yet  the  general  treatment  of  the  subject  by  Langlande 
is  so  peculiar,  that  the  whole  work  must  be  pronounced  eminently 
original,  in  the  sense  in  which  that  epithet  is  usually  and  pro- 
perly applied,  in  literary  criticism,  to  discursive  and  imaginative 
productions. 

Every  great  popular  writer  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  product  of 
his  country  and  his  age,  a  reflection  of  the  intellect,  the  moral 
sentiment  and  the  prevailing  social  opinions  of  his  time.  The 
author  of  Piers  Ploughman,  no  doubt,  embodied  in  a  poetic 
dress  just  what  millions  felt,  and  perhaps  hundreds  had  uttered 
in  one  fragmentary  form  or  another.  His  poem  as  truly  ex- 
pressed the  popular  sentiment,  on  the  subjects  it  discussed,  as 
did  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence  the  national 
thought  and  feeling  on  the  relations  between  the  Colonies  and 
Great  Britain.  That  remarkable  document  disclosed  no  pre- 
viously unknown  facts,  advanced  no  new  political  opinions,  pro- 
claimed no  sentiment  not  warranted  by  previous  manifestations 
of  popular  doctrine  and  the  popular  will,  employed  perhaps 
even  no  new  combination  of  words,  in  incorporating  into  one 
proclamation  the  general  results  to  which  the  American  head 
and  heart  had  arrived.  Nevertheless,  Jefferson,  who  drafted  it, 
is  as  much  entitled  to  the  credit  of  originality,  as  he  who  has 
best  expressed  the  passions  and  emotions  of  men  in  the  shifting 
scenes  of  the  drama  or  of  sonsr. 

The  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman  thus  derives  its  interest,  not 
from  the  absolute  novelty  of  its  revelations,  but  partly  from  its 
literary  form,  partly  from  the  moral  and  social  bearings  of  its 
subject — the  corruptions  of  the  nobility  and  of  the  several  de- 
partments of  the  government,  the  vices  of  the  clergy  and  the 
abuses  of  the  church — in  short,  from  its  connection  with  the 
actual  life  and  opinion  of  its  time,  into  which  it  gives  us  a  clearer 
insight  than  many  a  laboured  history.     Its  dialect,  its  tone,  and 


Lect.  VIL  piers  ploughman  297 

its  poetic  dress  alike  conspired  to  secure  to  the  Vision  a  wide 
circulation  among  the  commonalty  of  the  realm,  and,  by  formu- 
lating— to  use  a  favourite  word  of  the  day  —  sentiments  almost 
universally  felt,  though  but  dimly  apprehended,  it  brought  them 
into  distinct  consciousness,  and  thus  prepared  the  English  people 
for  tlie  reception  of  the  seed,  which  the  labours  of  Wycliffe  and 
his  associates  were  already  sowing  among  them. 

The  number  of  early  manuscripts  of  this  work  which  still  sur- 
vive proves  its  general  diffusion ;  and  the  wide  variations  which 
exist  between  the  copies  show  that  they  had  excited  interest 
enough  to  be  thought  worthy  of  careful  revision  by  the  original 
author,  or,  as  is  more  probable,  of  important  modification  by 
the  numerous  editors  and  transcribers  under  whose  recension 
they  subsequently  passed.  This,  indeed,  was  the  custom  of  the 
time ;  but  in  most  cases,  copyists  only  accommodated  the  dia- 
lect of  the  author  to  that  of  their  own  age  or  district,  or,  at 
most,  added  here  and  there  an  explanatory  gloss,  whereas  in 
some  of  the  later  manuscripts  of  Piers  Ploughman,  a  very  dif- 
ferent tone  of  sentiment  prevails  from  that  which  marks  what 
is  believed  to  be  the  original  text  of  the  work.  It  had  become 
eminently  a  popular  possession,  a  didactic  catechism.  This  fact 
and  its  anonymous  character  would  be  thought  to  justify  licenses 
in  copyists,  whereas  the  works  of  Grower  and  Chaucer  came  in  a 
purely  literary  form,  and  with  an  authority  derived  from  the 
social  position  of  the  writers,  which  secured  them  from  being 
so  freely  tampered  with  by  later  editors ;  and  consequently  the 
differences  between  different  manuscripts  of  those  authors  are 
generally  grammatical  or  orthographical  merely. 

The  querulous  tone  of  Piers  Ploughman  is  another  circum- 
stance which  gave  it  special  favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  populace, 
or  rather  of  the  middle  classes,  which  had  acquired  a  certain 
degree  of  opulence  and  culture,  but  yet  not  strength  enough  to 
be  able  to  protect  themselves  effectually  against  the  rapacity  of 
their  spiritual  and  temporal  lords. 

The  people,  under  all  governments — at  least  under  all  those 


298  PXERS  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

whose  subjects  enjoy  any  acknowledged  positive  rights  as  against 
the  sovereign  power — are  habitually  disposed  to  complaint. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  English,  who,  with  a  government 
almost  uniformly  better,  in  its  internal  administration,  than 
those  of  any  of  their  Continental  neighbours,  have  always  been 
a  nation  of  good-natured  grumblers.  Political  satires,  com- 
plaints with  a  strong  spice  of  humour  and  a  liberal  share  of  per- 
sonality, are  particularly  acceptable  to  that  people,  and  frequency 
and  freedom  of  such  criticism  on  governmental  action  has, 
under  most  reigns,  been  a  characteristic  of  the  public  life  of 
England.  The  extortion  of  Magna  Charta  was  a  manifestation 
of  English  character,  and  the  spirit  of  that  instrument,  which 
was  broader  than  its  letter,  has  fostered  the  inclination,  and 
secured  the  right,  of  the  subject  to  sit  in  judgment  on  his  ruler. 

If  we  compare  the  earliest  writings  which  are  distinctively 
English  in  temper  and  language,  including  Piers  Ploughman  as 
their  best  and  truest  representative,  with  those  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  we  shall  find  that  certain  salient  traits  which  mark  the 
English  are  almost  wholly  wanting  in  Saxon.  The  element  of 
humour,  though  in  a  very  different  sense  from  that  in  which  the 
word  is  used  in  the  dialect  of  German  criticism  *,  is,  and  from 
the  fourteenth  century  has  been,  eminently  characteristic  of 
English  literature.  This  trait  does  not  exist  in  the  extant  re- 
mains of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  or  prose,  nor  does  it  appear  to 
have  formed  an  ingredient  in  the  character  of  that  people. 

The  quality  of  humour  is  everywhere,  in  some  measure,  the 
fruit  of  culture.  Not  only  savages,  but  all  rude  races  who  have 
to  struggle  against  an  ungenial  climate,  and  a  soil  which  yields 
no  spontaneous  fruits,  are  grave.  Wit  and  humour  are  products 
of  that  stage  of  civilization,  which  belongs  to  such  a  develop- 

■'•'  English  humour  is  often  at  once  pathetic  and  laughter-moving ;  German 
humour  is,  not  unfrequently,  very  dreary,  without  being  either.  In  this  censure, 
I  do  not,  certainly,  include  the  tales  of  Musaeus,  still  less  the  wonderful  works  of 
Jean  Paid,  the  prince  of  genuine  humourists.  Some  of  Tieck's  stories  are  full  of 
this  quality,  and  I  think  there  are,  in  modern  literature,  few  more  humorous 
tales  than  his  autobiography  of  the  tailor-emperor,  Tonelli,  in  the  ninth  yolumo 
of  his  collected  works. 


Lect.  VII.  WIT   AND   HUMOUR  299 

inent  of  the  material  resources  of  a  country  as  leaves  to  its  more 
prosperous  inhabitants  some  leisure  for  other  occupations  than 
the  serious  toils  and  hazards  of  war,  or  the  lonely  and  silent 
and  weary  pursuits  of  the  chase  —  for  to  those  who  live  by  wood- 
craft, hunting  is  a  solitary  labour,  not  a  social  recreation. 

The  degree  of  artificial  culture  which  is  required  for  the 
generation  of  such  products  will  be  very  different  under  different 
climates  and  other  natural  conditions.  In  the  frozen  North, 
and  on  the  infertile  sands  of  a  tropical  desert,  where  constant 
effort  is  required  to  supply  the  physical  wants  of  life,  these 
spar]j:ling  traits  of  thought  will  not  manifest  themselves,  except 
under  the  influence  of  letters.  But  under  more  genial  skies, 
where  Earth  almost  spontaneously  feeds  her  children,  the  poetic 
impulses  and  aspects  of  Nature  herself  supply  a  culture,  which 
seems  in  some  degree  to  render  the  artificial  training  of  schools 
and  of  books  superfluous,  and  to  endow  the  most  untaught  with 
a  quickness  of  apprehension,  and  a  keenness  of  perception  of 
less  obvious  analogies,  which,  in  less  favoured  climes,  are  almost 
always  acquired,  not  self-developed,  faculties.  Besides  this,  in 
those  countries  which  were  the  seats  of  ancient  civilization,  a 
traditional  culture  has  survived  the  revolutions  of  many  centu- 
ries and  still  pervades  the  lowest  strata  of  society.*    The  remains 

*  The  traditions  of  Italy  hare  kept  alive,  in  the  memory  of  the  people,  not 
only  numerous  fragments  of  ancient  history,  but  many  of  the  romantic  dreams  and 
visions  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  progress  of  knowledge  in  the  Northern  states 
of  Italy  has,  within  a  few  years,  diffused  a  taste  for  reading  among  classes,  which, 
less  than  a  generation  since,  neA^er  looked  upon  a  printed  page.  The  subjects 
selected  naturally  connect  themselves  with  the  traditions  I  have  spoken  of,  and 
at  this  moment,  in  Piedmont  and  Lombardy,  the  favourite  books,  among  the 
least-instructed  ranks  who  read  at  all,  are  the  old  romances  of  chivalry.  Of 
these,  the  Reali  di  Francia  nei  quali  si  contiene  la  generazione  degli  Imperatori, 
Ee,  Duchi,  Principi,  Baroni  e  Paladini  di  Francia,  cominciando  da  Costantino 
Emperatore  sino  ad  Orlando,  Conte  d'  Anglante,  and,  Gueeino  detto  ie  Meschino, 
storia  delle  grandi  imprese  e  vittorie  da  lui  riportate  contro  i  Turchi,  are  the 
most  popular.  Cheap  editions  of  these  are  multiplied  and  sold  in  great  numbers, 
and  they  are  read  by  thousands  of  persons  in  conditions  of  life  in  which,  in 
England  and  America,  nothing  is  ever  heard  of  the  '  dowzepers  '  of  him,  who 

"With  all  his  peerage  fell 
At  Fontarabia. 


300  WIT   AJJD   HUMOUR  Lect.  VII. 

of  classic  art,  and  the  vague  memories  of  by-gone  national 
power  and  splendour,  contribute  also  to  educate  and  refine  classes 
which,  in  younger  races  and  more  recently  subdued  regions, 
fall  below  the  reach  of  all  elevating  influences. 

Hence  while  the  Gothic  tribes,  though  profound  and  strong 
in  intellect,  are  obtuse  till  artificially  quickened  by  education, 
the  Eomance  nations  are  rapid  and  precocious  in  the  operations 
of  the  intellect,  sensible  to  artistic  beauty,  alive  to  the  charms 
of  nature,  and  ever  awake  to  the  sense  of  the  ludicrous.  The 
populace  of  Europe  who  laugh  the  most,  and  have  the  most 
mirth-inspiring  dialect  and  habits,  are  the  Neapolitan  plebeians; 
but  a  Styrian  or  a  Carinthian  peasant,  with  the  same  amount 
of  positive  attainment  which  the  humble  Italian  possesses,  is  as 
solemn  not  to  say  as  stupid  as  the  cattle  he  drives. 

The  distinction  between  wit  and  humour  is  not  very  easily 
expressed  or  apprehended,  as  is  abundantly  shown  by  the 
thousand  abortive  attempts  to  discriminate  between  them ;  and 
it  is  as  difficult  to  define  either  as  to  describe  the  smile  they 
kindle. 

Wit  has  been  said  to  consist  in  the  perception  of  obscure  re- 
lations, and  this  half-truth  explains  how  it  is  that  men  of  mul- 
tifarious reading — whose  knowledge,  of  course,  reveals  to  them 
analogies  not  obvious  to  less  instructed  minds  —  are  never  with- 
out wit. 

I  shall  not  attempt  what  none  has  yet  satisfactorily  accom- 
plished, the  description  and  limitation  of  wit  and  humour,  nor  is 
any  discussion  of  the  special  character  of  the  former  essential 
to  our  present  purpose  ;  but  we  may  say,  in  a  general  way,  that 
while  true  wit  is  as  universal  as  social  culture,  humour  is  local- 
ized and  national,  and  the  distinctive  forms  in  which  different 
peoples  clothe  the  ludicrous  conceptions  peculiar  to  themselves 
and  almost  inappreciable  by  strangers,  constitute  iheir  national 
humour. 

English  humour,  then,  is  Anglicized  wit.  It  is  a  spark  thrown 
out  whenever  the  positive  and  negative  electricities  of  the  French 


Lect.  VII.  PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  301 

and  Saxon  constituents  of  the  English  intellect  are  passing  into 
equilibrium,  and  no  great  English  writer  has  ever  been  able 
wholly  to  suppress  it.  Piers  Ploughman  is  pervaded  with 
humour,  and  this  quality  undoubtedly  contributed,  in  a  great 
degree,  to  its  general  popularity. 

The  familiarity  of  even  the  labouring  classes  with  this  work, 
and  the  strong  hold  it  soon  acquired  on  the  popular  mind,  are 
well  illustrated  in  the  curious  letter  addressed  to  the  commons 
of  Essex  by  the  enlightened,  brave,  and  patriotic  John  Ball, 
who  is  conspicuous  as  one  of  the  few  clerical  advocates  of  the 
rights  of  man,  in  the  Middle  Ages.*  In  this  letter,  the 
reformer  introduces  the  names  of  John  Schep  or  Shepherd  — 
borrowed  probably,  as  Wright  suggests,  from  the  opening  lines 
of  the  poem : 

I  shoop  me  into  shroudes 
As  I  a  sheep  weere, — 

and  that  of  Piers  Ploughman,  as  personages  familiar  to  those 
whom  he  was  addressing ;  and  in  another  part  of  the  letter,  he 
quotes,  in  an  emphatic  way,  the  phrases  *  do  well '  and  '  do 
better,'  which  are  of  very  frequent  occurrence  in  the  Vision  as 

*  I  take  the  text  of  this  letter  from  the  Introduction  to  Wright's  edition  of 
Piers  Ploughman : 

'  John  Schep,  sometime  Seint  Mary  priest  of  Yorke,  and  now  of  Colchester, 
graeteth  well  John  Namelesse,  and  John  the  Miller,  and  John  Carter,  and  biddeth 
them  that  they  beware  of  guyle  in  borough,  and  stand  together  in  Gods  name, 
and  biddeth  Tiers  Flowcman  goc  to  his  werJce,  and  chastise  well  Hob  the  robber, 
and  take  with  you  John  Trewman,  and  all  liis  fellows,  and  no  moe  John  the 
Miller  hath  y-ground  smal,  small,  small.  The  kings  sonne  of  heaven  shall  pay  for 
all.  Beware  or  ye  be  woe,  know  your  frende  fro  your  foe,  have  ynough,  and 
say  hoe :  And  do  wel  and  better,  and  flee  sinne,  and  sceke  peace  and  holde  you 
therin,  and  so  biddeth  John  Trewman  and  all  his  fellowes.' 

The  orthography  Schep  suggests  the  probability  that  the  form  sheep,  in  the 
couplet  quoted  above,  is  erroneous,  and  undoubtedly  the  word,  when  used  for 
shepherd,  had  a  different  pronunciation  from  that  given  to  it  when  it  was  simply 
the  name  of  the  quadruped. 

The  letter  is  interesting,  not  only  from  its  connection  with  the  poem.  Piers 
Ploughman,  but  as  a  specimen  of  an  argot,  or  conventional  dialect ;  for  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  such  phrases  as  '  guyle  in  borough '  '  do  wel  and  better,'  and 
the  like,  had  some  other  than  their  apparent  and  literal  meaning, 


302  PIERS  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

the  designations  of  two  of  the  allegorical  dramatis  person^e  of 
the  poem.  It  is  probable  that  in  this  case  John  Schep  and 
Piers  Ploughman,  as  well  as  the  other  proper  names  used  in 
the  letter,  were  appellations  assumed  as  a  disguise  by  real  per- 
sons, though  the  people  of  Essex  doubtless  well  knew  who  were 
meant  by  them. 

But  whether  we  suppose  these  names  to  be  here  used  as  in- 
dicating a  class,  or  as  the  noms  de  guerre  of  individual^,  the 
fact  of  their  employment  for  the  one  purpose,  or  their  assump- 
tion for  the  other,  proves  that  their  poetical  and  political  signi- 
ficance, and  of  course  the  general  scope  of  the  poem,  were  well 
understood  by  the  humblest  class  of  English  citizens  who  were 
open  to  any  form  of  literary  influence. 

As  I  have  already  remarked,  a  circumstance  which  gives  im- 
portance to  Piers  Ploughman  and  its  imitations  is,  the  form  of 
poetical  composition  in  which  they  are  dressed.  The  verse  is 
neither  metrical  nor  rhymed ;  but  it  is  characterized  by  rhythm 
and  alliteration,  according  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  models  of  versi- 
fication, and,  as  was  observed  in  the  last  lecture,  it  conforms 
more  closely  to  the  conventional  rules  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetical 
composition  than  any  of  the  existing  remains  of  the  poetry  of 
that  literature.  This  fact  has  been  partly  explained  by  the  cir- 
cumstance that  it  was  an  imitation  of  an  extinct  poetical  form  ; 
but  it  is  also  an  evidence  that  the  influence  of  the  Danish  in- 
vaders— whose  bards  employed  rhythm  and  alliteration  with 
greater  strictness  than  the  Anglo-Saxons  had  ever  done  —  had 
some  weight  in  reviving  the  taste  for  a  form  of  verse  which  had 
become  obsolete  in  the  indigeuous  literature  of  England.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  suggests  the  probability  that  rhythm  and  re- 
gular alliteration,  though  they  had  nearly  disappeared  from 
written  native  poetry,  may  have  been  kept  alive  in  popular 
ballads,  existing  in  oral  tradition  to  a  greater  extent  than  written 
records  now  remaining  would  authorize  us  to  infer.* 

*  For  an  account  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  old  English  alliterative  measures,  see 
First  Series,  Lecture  XXV.     It  has  been  conjectured  that  there  was,   in  this 


Lect.  VII.  PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  303 

The  Vision  of  the  Ploughman  furnishes  abundant  evidence  of 
the  familiarity  of  its  author  with  the  Latin  Scriptures,  the 
writings  of  the  fathers,  and  the  commentaries  of  Romish  expo- 
sitors, but  exhibits  very  few  traces  of  a  knowledge  of  Eomance 
literature.  Still  the  proportion  of  Norman-French  words,  or  at 
least  of  words  which,  though  of  Latin  origin,  are  French  in 
form,  is  quite  as  great  as  in  the  works  of  Chaucer.  The  fami- 
liar use  of  this  mixed  vocabulary,  in  a  poem  evidently  intended 
for  the  popular  ear,  and  composed  by  a  writer  who  gives  no 
other  evidence  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  France, 
would,  were  other  proof  wanting,  tend  strongly  to  confirm  the 
opinion  I  have  before  advanced,  that  a  large  infusion  of  French 
words  had  been,  not  merely  introduced  into  the  literature,  but 
already  incorporated  into  the  common  language  of  England; 
and  that  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  those  employed  by  the 
poets  were  first  introduced  by  them. 

The  poem,  if  not  altogether  original  in  conception,  is  abun- 
dantly so  in  treatment.  The  spirit  it  breathes,  its  imagery,  the 
turn  of  thought,  the  style  of  illustration  and  argument  it  em- 
ploys, are  as  remote  as  possible  from  the  tone  of  Anglo-Saxon 
poetry,  but  exhibit  the  characteristic  moral  and  mental  traits 
of  the  Englishman,  as  clearly  and  unequivocally  as  the  most 
national  portions  of  the  works  of  Chaucer  or  of  any  other  native 
writer. 

The  Vision  has  little  unity  of  plan,  and  indeed  —  considered 
as  a  satire  against  many  individual  and  not  obviously  connected 
abuses  in  church  and  state  —  it  needed  none.  But  its  aim  and 
purpose  are  one.     It  was  not  an  expostulation  with  temporal 

ancient  verse,  as  well  as  in  Greek  and  Latin  classical  poetry,  some  yet  nndis- 
covered  metrical  element,  the  proper  application  of  -svhicli  rendered  it  more 
melodious  to  the  ear  than  our  rugged  accentuation  makes  it.  But  the  Anglo-Saxon 
system  was  evidently  identical  with  the  Icelandic,  except  that  it  wanted  half  and 
whole  rhyme  ;  and  Snorri  Sturluson — whose  very  full  and  complete  Icelandic  Art 
of  Poetry,  written  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  is  still  extant  — 
does  not  allude  to  any  characteristic  of  verse  but  alliteration,  whole  and  half,  line 
and  terminal,  rhyme,  and  accent,  though  he  is  very  minute  in  his  analysis  of  all 
the  constituents  of  poetic  form. 


304  PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.    VII. 

and  spiritual  rulers,  not  an  attempt  to  awaken  their  consciences, 
or  excite  their  sympathies,  and  thus  induce  them  to  repent  of 
the  sins  and  repair  the  wrongs  they  had  committed;  nor  was 
it  an  attack  upon  the  theology  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  a 
revolutionary  appeal  to  the  passions  of  the  multitude.  It  was 
a  calm,  allegorical  exposition  of  the  corruptions  of  the  state,  of 
the  church,  and  of  social  life,  designed,  not  to  rouse  the  people 
to  violent  resistance  or  bloody  vengeance,  but  to  reveal  to  them 
the  true  causes  of  the  evils  under  which  they  were  suffering, 
and  to  secure  the  reformation  of  those  grievous  abuses,  by  a 
united  exertion  of  the  moral  influence  which  generally  accom- 
panies the  possession  of  superior  physical  strength. 

The  allegory,  and  more  especially  the  dream  or  vision,  is,  in 
the  simpler  stages  of  society,  and  consequently  in  the  early  lite- 
rature of  most  nations,  a  favourite  euphemistic  form  for  the 
announcement  of  severe,  or  otherwise  disagreeable  truths.  Its 
capacity  of  double  interpretation  might  serve  as  a  retreat  for 
the  dreamer  in  case  of  apprehended  persecution,  and  when  once 
it  had  become  a  common  mode  of  censuring  social  or  political 
grievances,  it  would  continue  to  be  employed  by  those  who  no 
longer  needed  the  disguise  of  equivocal  language,  merely  be- 
cause it  was  the  usual  form  in  which  the  inferior  expressed 
his  dissatisfaction  with  the  administration  or  the  corruptions 
of  the  superior  power. 

While,  therefore,  WyclifFe,  at  a  somewhat  later  day,  assumed 
a  posture  of  open  hostility  to  the  papal  church,  by  attacking 
some  of  the  cardinal  doctrines  on  which  the  supremacy  of  the 
see  of  Eome  is  founded,  the  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman  had  not 
taken  so  advanced  a  position.  At  the  same  time,  it  was  ex- 
tremely well  calculated  to  suggest  opinions  which  it  did  not 
itself  openly  profess ;  and  the  readers,  who  recognized  the  truth 
of  the  pictures  of  social  and  ecclesiastical  depravity  there  pre- 
sented, could  hardly  fail  to  suspect  the  necessity  of  adopting 
some  more  energetic  measures  of  reform  than  a  mere  resort  to 
moral  suasion.     Hence  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Vision,  and. 


Lf.ct.  VIT.  PIETtS   PLOUGHMAN  305 

a  few  years  after,  the  Creed,  of  Piers  Ploughman,  — which  latter 
is  more  exclusively  directed  against  the  corruptions  of  the 
Eomish  Church,  — ^^powerfully  aided  in  promoting  the  reception 
of  the  doctrines  of  Wycliffe,  encouraged  the  circulation  of  the 
new  English  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  and  thus  planted,  deep 
in  the  English  mind,  the  germ  of  that  religious  revolution 
which  was  so  auspiciously  begun  and  perfected  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  as  well  as  of  the  political  reforms  which  followed,  a 
hundred  years  later. 

I  shall  not  go  much  into  detail  in  giving  a  general  view  of 
the  structure  of  this  interesting  and  remarkable  poem.  No 
branch  of  criticism  is  less  generally  profitable  or  instructive 
than  that  which  discusses  the  plan  of  literary  compositions, 
except  in  reference  to  the  drama,  the  special  aim  of  which  is  the 
exhibition  of  the  entire  moral  character  and  internal  life  of  in- 
dividuals, considered  as  types  of  humanity  in  its  almost  infi- 
nitely varied  phases.  The  exposition  of  the  plan  of  a  work  of 
imagination  no  more  helps  us  to  form  a  conception  of  the  im- 
pression we  derive  from  the  production  itself,  than  a  description 
of  a  skeleton  would  aid  us  in  constructing  a  visual  image  of  the 
person  of  a  Washington.  It  is  the  muscular  form,  the  circu- 
lating fluids,  the  coloured  integuments,  that  give  life  and  indi- 
viduality to  organic  objects  and  to  the  products  of  the  organized 
fancy ;  and  the  actual  perusal  of  a  poem  is  as  essential  to  an 
idea  of  it  as  a  whole,  as  the  sight  of  a  man  to  a  clear  notion  of 
his  personality.  Every  primitive,  incipient  literature  is  spon- 
taneous and  unconscious,  not  premeditated  and  critical.  In 
this  stage  of  art,  or  rather  of  impulsive  composition,  narrative 
and  discursive  works  of  imagination  are  written  without  a  plan. 
The  poem  shapes  and  organizes  itself  as  it  grows;  and  it  may 
be  remarked  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  where  authors  have 
themselves  set  forth  the  scheme  and  purport  of  their  allegories, 
it  has  been  found  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  recognize  the 
professed  plan  in  the  finished  work. 

But  to  return.     The  dreamer  of  the  Vision,   '  weary,   for- 

X 


306  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VI 1. 

wandered,'  falls  asleep  ^on  a  May  morwenynge  on  Malverne 
hilles,'  the  poet  thus  happily  suggesting,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  poem,  the  cheerful  images  belonging  to  the  return  of 
spring  and  the  beautiful  scenery  for  which  that  locality  is  still 
famous.  He  sees  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  gathered  in  a  fair 
meadow  before  him,  and  observes  their  various  ranks  and  occu- 
pations, devoting  a  large  part  of  his  description  to  an  account 
of  the  different  orders  of  the  monastic  and  secular  clergy,  re- 
ligious mendicants  and  pilgrims,  and  depicting  in  strong 
language  their  worldliness  and  depravity. 

I  fond  there  freres, 
Alle  the  fbure  ordres, 
Precliynge  the  peple 
For  profit  of  hemselve; 
Gloscd  the  gospel, 
As  hem  good  liked ; 
For  coveitise  of  copes, 
Construwed  it  as  thei  wolde. 

This  sketch,  with  the  old  fable  of  belling  the  cat,  occupies  the 
introduction.  In  the  first  section,  or  Passus,  as  the  writer 
styles  it,  a  heavenly  messenger,  the  personification  of  'holi 
chirche,'  appears  to  the  dreamer,  and  bestows  explanations,, 
warnings  and  counsels  upon  him.  In  the  second  Passus,  he 
observes  'on  his  left  half  a  woman,  who  is  thus  described:  — 

I  loked  on  my  left  half, 
As  the  lady  me  taughte, 
And  was  war  of  a  womman 
Worthiliche  y-clothed, 
Purfiled  with  pelui-e 
The  fyneste  upon  erthe, 
Y-corouned  with  a  coroune 
The  kyng  hath  noon  bettre 
Fetisliche  ^  hire  fyngres 
"Were  fretted  with  gold  wyr, 

*  fetisliche,  elegantly,  Norman-French,  faictissement,  from  Lat.  facere. 


Lkct.  VII.  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  307 

And  theron  rede  rubies 

As  rede  as  any  gleede/ 

And  diamaundes  of  derrest  pris, 

And  -double  manere  saphires, 

Orientals  ^  and  ewages,^ 

Envenymes'*  to  destroy e. 

Hire  robe  was  ful  riche, 
Of  reed  scarlet  engreyned, 
With  ribanes  of  reed  gold 
And  of  riclie  stones. 
Hire  array  me  ravysshed, 
Swich  richesse  saugh  I  nevere ; 
I  hadde  wonder  what  she  was, 
And  whos  wif  she  were. 

This  lady,  as  Holy  Chirche  informs  him,  is  Mede,  or  what  the 
English  Scriptures  call  lucre,  and  'in  the  popes  paleis'  is  as 
familiar  as  Holi  Chirche  herself.  His  visitor  now  leaves  him, 
and  in  the  remainder  of  the  second,  as  well  as  in  the  third  and 
fourth  sections,  the  dreamer  observes  how  all,  high  and  low, 
rich  and  poor,  lay  and  clergy,  alike  offer  their  homage  to  Mede 
or  Lucre,  who  contracts  a  legal  marriage  with  Falsehood.  In 
the  third  Passus,  Mede  is  taken  into  favour  at  court,  and  is  much 
caressed  by  the  friars,  though  her  intrigues  are  sometimes 
thwarted  by  Conscience,  who  seems  to  have  greater  influence 
with  the  king  than  with  the  priesthood.  The  king  proposes  a 
new  matrimonial  alliance  between  Mede  and  Conscience,  to 
which  proposal  the  latter  replies:  — 

'  glcede,  burning  or  glowing  coal.  ^  oriental,  red  sapphire.  '  cwagc,  defined  by 
Wright,  with  a  query  as  to  its  source,  *  a  kind  of  precious  stone,'  is  the  aqua- 
marine, sea-water  or  green  beryl.  Eau,  in  old  French,  was  spelled  in  a  great 
variety  of  ways,  and,  among  others,  eau  we,  eawe,  eaige,  and  hence  'twage,  as 
also,  notwithstanding  its  resemblance  to  the  A.-S.  huer  or  hwer,  Icel.  hverr, 
ewer,  a  water-vessel,  *  envenymes  to  dcstroye.  The  ruby,  and  many  other 
precious  stones,  Avere  worn  in  the  JMiddle  Ages  as  amulets  against  poison ;  and 
they  were  believed  by  many  medical  men  to  exert  a  physical  agency,  as  remedial 
agents,  in  the  healing  of  wounds,  whether  from  poisoned  or  unpoisoned  weapons. 
Recipes  for  the  application  of  them  may  be  found  of  as  late  date  as  the  seven- 
teenth century. 


308  THE    VISION    OF   PIEBS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

Crist  it  me  forbede  ! 

Er  I  -wedclc  swiclie  a  wif, 

Wo  me  bitide  ! 

For  she  is  frele  of  hire  feith, 

Fikel  of  hire  speche, 

And  maketh  men  mysdo 

Many  score  tymes ;  . 

Trust  of  hire  tresor 

Bitrayeth  ful  manye. 

He  thus  prpceeds  to  state  his  objections  to  the  match,  at  great 
length,  bringing  out  the  abuses  in  Church  and  State,  of  which 
Mede,  or  the  love  of  lucre,  is  the  cause,  but  finally  proposes  to 
leave  the  question  to  the  decision  of  Eeason.  Peace  now  enters 
upon  the  scene  as  a  suitor  to  parliament  for  redress  for  griev- 
ances inflicted  upon  him  by  Wrong,  and  Eeason  and  Conscience 
prevail  with  the  king,  who  announces  his  determination  to 
govern  his  realm  according  to  the  advice  of  Eeason.  This 
concludes  the  fourth  section  and  the  first  vision. 

The  dreamer  '  waked  of  his  wynkyng '  and  attempted  to  pro- 
ceed on  his  pilgrimage,  but 

wo  was  withalle 
That  [he]  ne  hadde  slept  sadder, 
And  y-seighen  moore. 

Becoming  fatigued,  he,  like  many  other  good  Christians  before 
and  since  his  time, 

sat  sc)ftely  a-doun, 
And  seide  his  bileve, 
And  so  he  bablede  on  his  bedes, 
Thei  bronghte  him  a-slepe. 

He  now  has  a  second  vision,  in  which  he  again 

seigh  the  feld  ful  of  folk, 

and  Eeason  preaching  repentance  to  different  classes  of  offenders, 
each  of  which  is  personified  by  the  name  of  the  sin  to  which  it 
is  addicted.     One  of  the  chief  sinners  is  Coveitise,  who,  after  a 


Lect.  VII.  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  309 

long  and  curious  voluntary  confession,  is  subjected  to  a  cross- 
examination  by  Kepentance. 
The  following  is  .an  extract :  — 

*  I  have  ben  coveitous,'  quod  this  caytif, 
*  I  bi-knowe  ^  it  here, 
For  som  tyme  I  served 
Sy  mme-atte-  Style, 
And  was  his  prentice  y-phght 
His  profit  to  wayte. 

'  First  I  lerned  to  lye, 
A  leef  outher  tweyne ; 
Wikkedly  to  weye 
Was  my  firste  lesson ; 
To  Wy  and  to  Wynchestre 
I  wente  to  the  feyre. 
With  many  manere  marchaundise, 
As  my  maister  me  higlite. 
Ne  hadde  the  grace  of  gyle  y-go 
Amonges  my  chafFare, 
It  hadde  ben  unsold  this  seven  yer, 
So  me  God  helpe !  ' 

'  Thanne  drough  I  me  among  drapiers, 
My  donet  ^  to  lerne, 
To  drawe  the  liser^  along, 
The  lenger  it  semed ; 
Among  the  riche  rayes 
I  rendred  a  lesson. 
To  broche  hem  with  a  pak-nedle, 
And  playte  hem  togideres. 
And  putte  hem  in  a  presse, 
And  pyne  hem  therinne. 
Til  ten  yerdes  or  twelve 
Hadde  tolled  out  thrittene. 

'  My  wif  was  a  webbe, 
And  wollen  cloth  made ; 
She  spak  to  spynnesteres 

*  bi-hnowe,  confess,  Ger.  b  eke  mien.  ^  donct,  a  name  applied  to  grammars 
from  Donatus,  the  author  of  a  celebrated  Latin  accidence  and  syntax,  and,  after- 
wards, to  any  manual  of  instruction,  or  set  of  rules.         ^  ^/^^^^  selvage. 


310  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUaHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

To  spynnen  it  oute, 
Ac  tlie  pound  that  she  paied  by 
Peised  a  quatron  moore 
Than  myn  owene  auncer,* 
Who  so  we3'ed  truthe. 

*  I  boughte  hire  barly-malt, 
She  brew  it  to  selle, 

Peny  ale  and  puddyng  ale 
She  poured  togideres, 
For  laborers  and  for  lowe  folk 
That  lay  by  hymselve. 

'  The  beste  ale  lay  in  my  bour, 
Or  in  my  bed-chambre  ; 
And  who  so  bummed  therof, 
Boughte  it  therafter, 
A  galon  for  a  grote, 
God  woot,  no  lesse  ! 
And  yet  it  cam  in  cuppe-mele, 
This  craft  my  wif  used. 
Eose  the  Regrater 
Was  hire  righte  name; 
She  hath  holden  hukkerye 
Al  hire  lif  tyme. 
Ac  I  swere  now,  so  thee  ik  ! 
That  synne  wol  I  lete, 
And  nevere  wikkedly  weye, 
Ne  wikke  chafFare  use ; 
But  wenden  to  Walsyngham, 
And  my  wif  als, 

And  bidde  the  Roode  of  Bromholm 
Brynge  me  out  of  dette.' 

*  Repentedestow  evere  ?  '  quod  Repentaunce, 

*  Or  restitucion  madest.' 

*  Yis  2,  ones  I  was  y-herberwed,'  quod  he, 

*  With  an  heep  of  chapmen, 

I  roos  whan  thei  were  a-reste 
And  rifiede  hire  males.' 

*  auncer,  here  probably  the  bowl  of  a  steelyard,  or  of  a  pair  of  scales ;  gene- 
rally, a  cup.  *  yis.  This  particle,  being  an  answer  to  a  question  framed  affirm- 
atively, is  wrongly  used  for  yea.    See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXVI.,  pp.  579,  583. 


Lkct.   VII.  THE    VISION    OF   PIEES   PLOUGHMAN  311 

*  That  was  no  restitucion,'  quod  Eepentaunce, 
'  But  a  robberis  thefte  ; 
Tliow  haddest  be  the  bettre  worthi 
Ben  hanged  therfore, 
Than  for  al  that 
That  thow  hast  here  shewed,' 

'  I  wende  riflynge  were  restitucion,'  quod  he, 
'  For  I  lerned  nevere  rede  on  boke ; 
And  I  kan  no  Frensshe,  in  feith. 
But  of  the  fertheste  ende  of  Northfolk.' 

'  Usedestow  evere  usurie  ?  '  quod  Eepentaunce, 

*  In  al  thi  lif  tjme.' 

'Nay  sothly,'  he  seide, 

*  Save  in  my  youthe 

I  lerned  among  Lumbardes 

And  Jewes  a  lesson, 

To  weye  pens  with  a  peis,i 

And  pare  the  hevyeste, 

And  lene  it  for  love  of  the  cros, 

To  legge  a  wed  2  and  lese  it. 

Swiche  dedes  I  dide  write, 

If  he  his  day  breke, 

I  have  mo  manoirs  thorugh  rerages. 

Than  thorugh  miseretur  et  commodat. 

*  I  have  lent  lordes 
And  ladies  my  chafFare, 
And  ben  hire  brocour  after, 
And  bought  it  myselve; 
Eschaunges  and  chevysaunces 
With  swich  chafFare  I  dele, 
And  lene  folk  that  lese  wole 
A  lippe  at  every  noble, 
And  with  Lumbardes  lettres^ 
I  ladde  gold  to  Rome, 
And  took  it  by  tale  here. 
And  tolde  hem  there  lasse.' 

*  pets,  Fr.  poids,  weight.  2  ^^^^  pledge.  3  Lumbardes  lett^cs,  bills 

of  exchange.     There  are  some  passages  in  this  extract  which  I  do  not  understand. 
I  hope  my  readers  may  be  more  fortunate. 


312  THE   VISION    OF   PIERS   TLOUGIIMAN  Lect.  Vll. 

'  Lcntestow  cvere  lordes, 
For  love  of  hire  mayntenaunce  ? ' 
*  Ye,  I  have  lent  to  lordes, 
Loved  me  nevere  after, 
And  have  y-maad  many  a  knyght 
Bothc  mercer  and  draper, 
That  payed  nevere  for  his  prentishode 
Noght  a  peire  gloves.' 

'  Hastow  pite  on  povere  men, 
That  mote  nedes  borwo  ?  ' 

'  I  have  as  miiche  pite  of  povere  men, 
As  pedlere  hath  of  eattes. 

That  wolde  kille  hem,  if  he  cacche  hem  myghte, 
For  coveitise  of  hir  skynnes.' 

'  Artow  manlich  among  ihi  neghebores 
Of  thi  mete  and  drynke  ?  ' 

*  I  am  hold  en,'  quod  he,  *  as  hende 
As  hound  is  in  icichen3, 
Amonges  my  neghebores,  namely, 
Swiche  a  name  ich  have.' 

The  multitude  of  repentant  hearers  set  out  on  a  pilgrimage 
to  Truth,  under  the  leadership  of  a  pilgrim  who  is  thus 
described :  — 

Ac  there  was  wight  noon  so  wys 
The  wey  thider  kouthe, 
But  blustreden  forth  as  beestes 
Over  bankes  and  hilles , 
Til  late  was  and  longe 
That  thei  a  leode  ^  mette, 
Apparailled  as  a  paynym 
In  pilgrymes  wise, 
lie  bar  a  burdoun^  y-bounde 
"With  a  brood  liste. 
In  a  withwynde  wise 
Y-wounden  aboute ; 
A  bolle  and  a  bagge 
He  bar  by  his  syde, 

^  leode,  man.  person.  *  burdoun,  staff. 


Lkct.  VII.  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS  PLOUGHMAN  313 

And  hundred  of  ampuUes^ 

On  liis  hat  seten, 

Signes  of  Synay, 

•And  shelles  of  GaHce, 

And  many  a  croucho^  on  his  cloke, 

And  keyes  of  Eome, 

And  the  vernycle  bi-fore, 

For  men  sholde  knoAve 

And  se  bi  hise  signes 

Whom  he  sought  hadde. 

It  may  be  worth  remarking,  in  connection  with  this  descrip- 
tion, which  would  in  many  particulars  apply  to  the  religious 
mendicants  of  the  East  at  the  present  day,  whether  Moslem  or 
Christian,  that  the  different  tokens  enumerated  indicated  the 
different  shrines  or  other  sacred  localities  which  the  pilgrim  had 
visited  or  professed  to  have  visited.  The  '  shelle  of  GaHce,'  or 
cockle-shell,  was  the  proper  cognizance  of  those  who  had  paid 
their  vows  at  the  shrine  of  St.  James,  at  Compostella  in  Galicia, 
on  the  coast  of  which  province  the  cockle-shell  abounded ;  the 
palm  and  the  cross  were  worn  by  those  who  had  worshipped  at 
the  Holy  Sepulchre;  the  keys  of  Peter,  and  the  vernycle,  or 
painting  of  the  handkerchief  of  St.  Veronica,  on  which  the  Sa- 
viour impressed  his  likeness,  when  he  wiped  the  sweat  from  his 
brow  with  it  on  his  way  to  Calvary,  by  those  who  had  been  at 
Rome. 

The  pilgrim,  notwithstanding  his  experience  as  a  traveller, 
and  the  sanctity  with  which  his  visits  to  so  many  sacred  localities 
had  invested  him,  proved  a  blind  guide,  and  the  wanderers  put 
themselves  under  the  direction  of  Piers  the  Ploughman,  who 
now,  for  the  first  time,  appears  in  the  poem.  The  new  guide 
employs  them  in  productive  labour,  but  they  become  seditious, 
and  are  at  last  reduced  by  the  aid  of  Hunger,  who  subdues 
"Waste,  the  leader  of   the  revolt,  and  humbles  his  followers. 


*  ampulles,  generally,  small  phials ;  here  it  seems  to  mean  tokens.         ^  crouche, 
cross :  the  modern  crutch  takes  its  name  from  its  cross-like  form. 


314 


THE   VISION   OF   PIEKS   PLOUGHMAN 


Lkct.  vir. 


The  poet  here  alludes  to  the  effects  of  a  recent  famine  and 
plague,  and  sharply  satirizes  the  luxury  and  extravagance  of  the 
wealthier  classes.  The  '  pardons '  or  indulgences  of  the  Pope 
are  contemptuously  treated,  and  the  pilgrim  goes  in  search  of 
*  Do-well,'  a  personification  of  good  works,  the  true  nature  of 
which  is  treated  as  a  difficult  question.  Wit  appears  to  him  and 
describes  the  residence  of  Do-well,  Do-better,  and  Do-best,  de- 
livering, at  the  same  time,  a  rambling  moral  and  religious  lec- 
ture. For  this  he  is  reproved  by  his  wife,  Studie,  evidently  a 
strong-minded  dame. 

That  lene  was  of  lere, 
And  of  liclie  bothe/ 

who  takes  the  words  out  of  his  mouth,  and,  after  a  long  dis- 
course, during  which  her  husband.  Wit, 

bicom  so  confus 
He  kouthe  noght  loke, 
And  as  doumb  as  dedie, 
And  drough  him  arere, 

she  recommends  the  Ploughman  to  her  cousin  Clergie,  for  further 
instruction.  Clergie  gives  his  pupil  a  dissertation,  in  which 
occurs  what  has  been  called  a  prophecy  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
monasteries  by  Henry  VIII. : — 

And  thanne  shal  the  abbot  of  Abyngdone, 
And  al  his  issue  for  evere, 
Have  a  knok  of  a  kyng, 
And  incurable  the  Avounde. 

When  Clergie  concludes,  the  pilgrim  exclaims :  — 

This  is  a  long  lesson, 
And  litel  am  I  the  wiser, 


'  Lene  of  lere  and  of  liche,  meagre  in  doctrine  and  in  person.  This  is  a 
sarcasm  against  scholastic  theology,  '  science  falsely  so  called,'  as  opposed  to 
practical,  living  Christianity. 


Lect.  VII.  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  315 

proceeds  to  reply,  at  great  length,  and  receives  a  reproof  from 
Scripture,  for  his  indocile  temper.  Then  follows  another  vision, 
in  which  the  dreamer  is  exposed  to  the  temptations  of  fortune 
and  sensual  pleasure,  is  rescued  by  Old  Age,  and  falls  into  a 
meditation  on  the  covetousness  of  the  friars,  the  doctrine  of 
predestination  and  other  religious  topics.  Nature  now  carries 
him  to  a  mountain,  and  shows  him  how  all  Jiving  creatures,  man 
alone  excepted,  are  obedient  to  the  dictates  of  Eeason,  after 
which  follows  an  exhortation  from  Imaginative,  concerning  the 
divine  punishments,  the  duties  of  charity  and  mercy,  and  the 
greater  responsibilities" of  the  learned  and  the  rich. 

Several  sections  of  similar  general  character  follow,  in  which 
new  personifications  of  virtues,  vices,  and  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  are  introduced.  In  the  eighteenth  section,  the  cha- 
racter of  Piers  Ploughman  is  identified  with  that  of  the  Saviour, 
and  the  remainder  of  this  section  is  principally  occupied  with 
Christ's  Passion,  his  descent  into  Hell,  the  rescue  of  the  patri- 
archs and  prophets,  his  resurrection  and  his  final  triumph  over 
the  infernal  spirits.  We  have  then  the  foundation  of  the  visible 
Church,  the  opposition  of  worldly  men  and  princes,  and  an  attack 
of  Antichrist  on  the  Church.  Afterwards,  the  Castle  of  Unity, 
the  strong-hold  of  the  Church,  is  assailed  by  an  army  of  priests 
and  monks,  and  Conscience,  the  governor  of  the  castle,  is  driven 
out,  and  goes  in  quest  of  the  Ploughman,  when  the  dreamer 
awakes. 

The  movement  of  the  poem  is,  to  a  considerable  extent,  dia- 
logistic,  and  in  these  portions  the  dialect  is  evidently  colloquial, 
though  the  characters  are  not  sufficiently  individualized  to  give 
the  performance  much  of  dramatic  effect;  but  it  seems  ex- 
tremely well  calculated  to  influence  the  class  for  whose  use  it 
was  chiefly  intended,  and  the  success  it  met  with  sufficiently 
proves  that,  in  spite  of  its  Latin  quotations,  it  was,  in  the  main, 
well  suited  to  their  comprehension. 

Although,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  the  proportion  of  words 
of  foreig^n  origin  in  the  vocabulary  of  Piers  Ploughman  is  as 


316  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

great  as  in  Chaucer,  yet  the  structure  of  the  dialect  is  more 
archaic,  and  there  are  many  words  which  are  now  obsolete,  as 
well  as  a  considerable  number  the  meaning  of  which  is  alto- 
gether unknown.  But  there  is  no  such  difference  in  the  stock 
of  words,  or  in  the  syntactical  combinations  of  the  two  authors, 
as  to  create  a  marked  dialectic  distinction  between  them,  and 
they  are  hardly  more  unlike  than  the  style  and  diction  of  two 
English  writers  of  the  present  day,  who  should  treat  themes 
and  address  audiences  so  different  as  those  of  Chaucer  and 
Langlande. 

The  moods  and  tenses  of  the  verb  had  acquired  very  nearly 
their  present  force,  and  the  past  and  future  auxiliaries  were 
used  substantially  as  in  modern  English.  I  mention  this  point 
particularly,  because  it  has  been  said  that  the  curious  and  intri- 
cate distinction  we  now  make  between  the  two  auxiliaries, 
shall  and  ivill,  is  of  recent  origin.  Cases  may  indeed  be  found 
in  Piers  Ploughman,  where  shall  is  used  in  a  connection  that 
would,  in  modern  usage,  require  will,  but  these  are  few,  and 
some  of  them  doubtful ;  and  I  have  observed  no  case  where 
ivill  is  put  for  the  modern  shall. 

The  verbs  are  inflected  much  according  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
fashion,  the  ending  th  characterizing  not  only  the  third  person 
singular,  present  indicative,  but  all  the  persons  of  the  plural  of 
that  mood  and  tense,  as  well  as  the  imperative.  The  infinitive 
generally  ends  in  en,  as  does  also  the  plural  of  the  past  tense, 
and  both  the  weak  and  strong  form  of  conjugation  are  employed. 
To  all  these  rules  there  are  exceptions,  and  the  poet  seems  to 
have  been  influenced  much  by  rhythm  in  the  conjugation  of  his 
verbs. 

The  nouns,  with  few  exceptions,  form  the  plural  in  s,  and  the 
adjective  plural  usually  terminates  in  e,  but  the  declension  of 
this  part  of  speech  is  irregular. 

The  return  to  the  Saxon  conjugation  of  the  verbs,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  been  much  disturbed,  is  curious,  as  an 
exemplification  of  the  reactionary  tendency  I  have  mentioned ; 


Lect.  VII.  THE   VISION    OF   PIEKS   PLOUGHMAN  317 

and  the  influence  of  Piers  Ploughman,  or  of  the  spirit  by  which 
that  work  was  animated,  was  strong  enough  to  keep  this  revived 
inflection  current  until  after  the  time  of  Chaucer. 

There  is,  in  general,  much  care  and  precision  in  the  use  of 
words,  which  seem  often  to  be  employed  with  an  intelligent  re- 
ference to  their  derivative  history,  and,  in  some  instances,  they 
are  explained  by  a  direct  statement  of  their  descent.  The  ety- 
mology of  the  word  heathen  from  heath,  as  implying  the  rude 
and  uncivilized  inhabitants  of  wild  and  unreclaimed  territory,  is 
curious,  and  it  has  appeared  as  original  in  more  than  one  later 
linguistic  work.     The  whole  passage  is  as  follows :  — 

*  Clooth  that  cometli  fro  the  wevyng 
Is  noght  comly  to  were, 
Til  it  be  fulled  under  foot 
Or  in  fullyng  stokkes, 
Wasslien  wel  with  water, 
An^  with  taseles  cracched, 
Y-touked^  and  y-teynted,^ 
And  imder  taillours  hande  ; 
Right  so  it  fareth  by  a  barn. 
That  born  is  of  a  wombe, 
Til  it  be  cristned  in  Cristes  name, 
And  confermed  of  the  bisshope, 
It  is  hethene  as  to  lievene-ward, 
And  help-lees  to  the  soule. 
Hethen  is  to  mene  after  heeth 
And  untiled  erthe. 
As  in  wilcle  wildernesse, 
Wexeth  wilde  beestes. 
Rude  and  unresonable, 
Rennynge  withouten  cropiers.* 

Piers  Ploughman,  although  allegorical  in  its  plan,  and  di- 
dactic in  its  aims,  gives  us  more  minute  and  intimate  views  of 
the  material  and  social  life  of  that  age,  than  almost  any  poetical 

*  y-touked,  dyed.        ^  y-teynted,  stretched  on  tenters. 


318  THE   VISION   OF   PIEES  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VI T. 

work  in  early  English  literature.  We  have  glimpses  at  the  con- 
dition, and  even  the  dress  and  nutriment,  of  the  labouring 
classes,  the  processes  of  the  arts,  the  frauds  of  artisans  and 
dealers,  the  corruptions  in  the  administration  of  justice,  the  rela- 
tions between  the  clerg}^  and  the  people,  and,  in  short,  at  all  those 
circumstances  which  made  up  the  actualities  of  English  life  in 
the  fourteenth  century;  and  hence,  though  it  deals  with  no 
questions  of  chronology,  this  poem  is  a  contribution  of  some 
value  to  the  domestic  history  of  the  English  nation. 

The  following  passages  are  of  the  character  just  indicated ;  — 

quod  Hunger, 

*  Hcnnes  ne  wole  I  wende, 
Til  I  have  dyned  bi  this  day, 
And  y-dronke  bothe.' 

*  I  have  no  pony,'  quod  Piers, 

*  Pulettes  to  bugge,^ 

Ne  neither  gees  ne  grys,^ 

But  two  grene  cheses, 

A  fewe  cruddes  and  creme, 

And  an  haver  ^  cake, 

And  two  loves  of  benes  and  bran, 

Y-bake  for  my  fauntes;'* 

And  yet  I  seye,  by  my  soule  ! 

I  have  no  salt  bacon, 

Ne  no  cokeney,  ^  by  Crist ! 

Coloppes  for  to  maken. 

'  Ac  I  have  percile  and  porettes, 
And  manye  cole  plauntes. 
And  ek  a  cow  and  a  calf, 
And  a  cart  mare 
To  drawe  a-feld  my  donge, 
The  while  the  droghte  lasteth ; 
And  by  this  liflode  we  mote  lyve 
Til  Lammesse  tyme. 
And  by  that,  I  hope  to  have 
Hervest  in  my  crofte, 

•  bugge,  buy,  ^  gri's,  pigs.  ^  haver^  oatmeal.  ■*  fauntcs,  servants. 

*  coJccnci/,  Wright  thinks,  a  lean  fowl. 


Lect.  Vll.  THE   VISION    OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  319 

And  thanne  may  I  dighte  thi  dyner, 
As  me  deere  liketh.' 

Al  the  povere  peple  tho 
Pescoddes  fetten, 
Benes  and  baken  apples 
Thei  broghte  in  hir  lappes, 
Chibolles  and  chervelles, 
And  ripe  chiries  manye, 
And  profrede  Piers  this  present 
To  plese  with  Hunger. 

Al  Hunger  eet  in  haste, 
And  axed  after  moore. 
Thanne  povere  folk,  for  fere, 
Fedden  Hunger  yerne, 
With  grene  porret  and  pesen 
To  poisone  hym  thei  thoghte. 
By  that  it  neghed  neer  herrest, 
And  newe  corn  cam  to  chepyng;^ 
Thanne  was  folk  fayn, 
And  fedde  Hunger  with  the  beste, 
"With  goode  ale,  as  Gloton  taghte. 
And  garte  Hunger  go  slepe. 

And  tho  wolde  Wastour  noglit  werche, 
But  wandren  aboute, 
Ne  no  beggere  ete  breed 
That  benes  inne  were. 
But  of  coket  and  cler-matyn,^ 
Or  ellis  of  clene  wliete  ; 
Ne  noon  halfpeny  ale 
In  none  wise  drynke, 
But  of  the  beste  and  of  the  brunneste  ^ 
That  in  burghe  is  to  selle. 

Laborers  that  have  no  land 
To  lyve  on  but  hire  handes. 
Deyned  noght  to  dyne  a  day 
Nyght-olde  wortes ; 
May  no  peny  ale  hem  paye, 
Ne  no  pece  of  bacone, 

chcpyng,  market.         ^  coJcet  and  cler-matyn,  finer  kinds  of  bread.  '  hrvn- 

neste,  brownest,  richest  with.  malt. 


320  THE   VISION   OP  PIEBS  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

But  if  it  be  fresshe  flessh  outher  fisshe, 
Fryed  outlier  y-bake, 
And  that  chmid  and  plus  chaud, 
For  chillynge  of  liir  mawe. 

Verses  4357—4424. 

Nought  to  fare  as  a  fithelere  or  a  frere, 

For  to  scke  festcs 

Homliclic  at  othere  menues  houses, 

And  hatien  hir  owene. 

Elenge  ^  is  the  halle 

Ech  day  in  the  wike, 

Ther  the  lord  ne  the  lady 

Liketh  noght  to  sitte. 

Now  hath  cch  riche  a  rule 

To  eten  by  hymselve 

In  a  pryvee  parlour, 

For  povere  mennes  sake, 

Or  in  a  chambre  with  a  chymenee, 

And  leve  the  chief  halle 

That  was  maad  for  meles, 

Men  to  eten  inne, 

And  al  to  spare  to  spende 

That  spille  shal  another. 

Verses  5791—5808. 

Thanne  Pacience  perceyved 
Of  pointes  of  this  cote, 
That  were  colomy^  thorugh  coveitise 
And  unkynde  desiryng ; 
Moore  to  good  than  to  God 
The  gome  3  his  love  caste, 
And  ymagynede  how 
He  it  myghte  have 
With  false  mcsures  and  met,* 
And  Avith  iiils  witnesse ; 
Lened-^  for  love  of  the  wed,^ 
And  looth  to  do  truthe ; 

'  elenge,  sad,   melancholy,  modern  ailing.  ^  colomy,  meaning  unknowu. 

■  gomCt  man.         *  mct^  measuring.        *  lened,  lent.        "  wed,  pledge. 


Lect.  VII.  THE   VISION    OF   PIEES   PLOUGHMAN  321 

And  awaited  thorugli  which 
Wey  to  bigile, 

And  menged  ^  his  marchatindise, 
»  And  made  a  good  moustre ;  ^ 

*  The  worste  withinne  was, 
A  greet  wit  I  let  it, 

And  if  my  neghebore  hadde  any  hyTie,^ 
Or  any  beest  ellis, 
Moore  profitable  than  myn, 
Manye  sleightes  I  made 
How  I  myghte  have  it, 
Al  my  wit  I  caste. 
And  but  I  it  hadde  by  oother  wey, 
At  the  laste  I  stale  it ; 
Or  priveliche  his  purs  shook, 
And  nnj)ikede  hise  lokes  ; 
Or  by  nyghte  or  by  daye 
Aboute  was  ich  evere, 
Thorugh  gile  to  gaderen 
The  good  that  ich  have. 

'  If  I  yede  to  the  plowgh, 
I  pynched  so  narwe. 
That  a  foot  lond  or  a  forow 
Fecchen  I  wolde 
Of  my  nexte  neghebore, 
And  nymen  of  his  erthe. 
And  if  I  repe,  over-reche, 
Of  yaf  hem  reed'*  that  ropen*'' 
To  seise  to  me  with  hir  sikel 
That  1  ne  sew''  n evere. 

'  And  who  so  borwed  of  me, 
A-boiighte  the  tyme 
With  presentes  prively, 
Or  paide  som  certeyn ; 
So  he  wolde  or  noght  wolde, 
Wynnen  I  wolde, 
And  bothe  to  kith  and  to  kyn 
Unkynde  of  that  ich  hadde. 

*  menged,  mixed,  bad  with  good.  ^  ,fnoustre,  sample,  or  perhaps  show,  cun- 
ning arrangement  so  as  to  hide  defects.  '  hyne,  servant.  *  rccd,  directions, 
*  ropcn,  reaped.        *  sew,  sowed. 


322  THE  VISION  of  piers  ploughman  Lect.  VII. 

*  And  who  so  cheped  my  chaffare, 
Chiden  I  wolde, 
But  he  profrede  to  paie 
A  peny  or  tweyne 
Moore  than  it  was  worth; 
And  yet  wolde  I  swere 
That  it  coste  me  muche  moore, 
And  so  swoor  manye  othes.' 

Verses  8737—8795. 

Barons  and  burgeises, 
And  bonde-men  als, 
I  seigh  in  this  assemblee, 
As  ye  shul  here  after  : 
Baksteres  and  brewesteres, 
And  bochiers  manye ; 
WoUen  webbesters, 
And  weveres  of  lynnen, 
Taillours  and  tynkers, 
And  tollers  in  markettes, 
Masons  and  mynours, 
And  many  othere  craftes. 
Of  alle  kynne  lybbynge  laborers 
Lopen*  forth  somme, 
As  dikeres  and  delveres, 
That  doon  hire  dedes  ille, 
That  dryveth  forth  the  longe  day 
With  Dieu  save  dame  Emme. 

Cokes  and  hire  knaves 
Cryden  '  Hote  pies,  hote  ! 
Goode  gees  and  grys ! 
Gowe,  dyne,  gowe ! ' 

Taverners  until  hem 
Trewely  tolden  the  same, 
Whit  wyn  of  Oseye, 
And  reed  wyn  of  Gascoigne, 
Of  the  Eyn  and  of  the  Kochel, 
The  roost  to  defie.  ^ 

Verses  430—457. 

I  lopcn,  ran.  *  defie,  digest. 


Lect.  VII.  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  323 

Langlande  seems  to  have  shared  in  the  popular  prejudice 
under  which  the  profession  of  law  has  always  laboured.  He 
thus  satirizes  the  bar : — 

Yet  hoved  ^  ther  an  hundred 

In  howves^  of  selk, 

Sergeantz  it  bi-semed 

That  serveden  at  the  barre, 

Pleteden  for  penyes 

And  poundes  the  lawe  ; 

And  noght  for  love  of  our  Lord 

Unlose  hire  lippes  ones. 

Thow  myghtest  bettre  meete  myst 

On  Malverne  hilles, 

Than  gete  a  mom  of  hire  mouth, 

Til  moneie  be  shewed. 

Verses  418—429. 

In  the  third  passus,  Mede's  confessor  proposes  to  her  to  secure 
her  salvation  by  giving  his  church  a  painted  window,  to  which 
she  assents :  — 


And  sithen  he  seide  : 

*  We  have  a  wyndow  in  werchynge 
Wole  sitten  us  ful  hye, 
Woldestow  glaze  that  gable 

And  grave  therinne  thy  name, 
Syker  sholde  thi  soule  be 
Hevene  to  have.' 

Verses  1449—1456. 

*  Have  mercy,'  quod  Mede, 

*  Of  men  that  it  haunteth. 
And  I  shal  covere  youre  kirk, 
Youre  cloistre  do  maken, 
"Wowes^  do  whiten, 

And  wyndoAves  glazen, 

*  hoved,  waited.        ^  Jiowves,  hoods  or  caps.        '  Wowes,  walls. 

Y  2 


324  THE   VISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect,  VII. 

Do  peynten  and  portray e, 
And  paie  for  the  makynge, 
That  every  segge  ^  shal  seye 
I  am  suster  of  youre  house.' 

Upon  this  the  Pilgrim  observes : — 

Ac  God  to  alle  good  folk 

Swich  gravynge  defendeth, 

To  •writen  in  wyndowes 

Of  hir  wel  dedes. 

*  ♦  #  • 

Lat  noght  thi  left  half 

Late  ne  rathe 

"Wite  what  thow  werchest 

With  thi  right  syde  ; 

For  thus  by  the  gospel 

Goode  men  doon  hir  almesse. 

Verses  1483—1507. 

The  author  exhibits  a  liberality  towards  the  Jews  rarely  met 
with  in  that  age : — 

Sholde  no  cristene  creature 

Cryen  at  the  yate, 

Ne  faille  payn  ne  potage, 

And  prelates  dide  as  thei  sholden. 

A  Jew  wolde  noght  se  a  Jew 

Go  janglyng  for  defaute, 

For  alle  the  mebles  on  this  moolde, 

And  he  amende  it  myghte. 

Alias!  that  a  cristene  creature 

Shal  be  unkynde  til  another  ; 

Syn  Jewes,  that  we  jugge 

Judas  felawes, 

Eyther  of  hem  helpeth  oother 

Of  that  that  hem  nedeth. 

Whi  nel  we  cristene 

Of  Cristes  good  be  as  kynde 

As  Jewes,  that  ben  cure  lores-men. 

Verses  5318—5337. 

»  segge,  man. 


Lect.  VII.  THE  VISION   OF  PIERS  PLOUGHMAN  326 

The  following  passage  on  the  degeneracy  of  bi^.h  nature  and 
man  is  striking  :■ — 

*  And  so  it  fareth  by  som  folk  now, 
Thei  han  a  fliir  speche, 

Crowne  and  cristendom, 

The  kynges  mark  of  hevene ; 

Ac  the  metal,  that  is  mannes  sonle, 

"With  synne  is  foiile  alayed. 

Bothe  lettred  and  lewed 

Beth  alayed  now  with  synne, 

That  no  lif  loveth  oother 

Ne  oure  Lord,  as  it  semeth. 

For  thorugh  werre  and  wikkede  werkes, 

And  wederes  unresonable, 

Weder-wise  shipmen, 

And  witty  clerkes  also, 

Han  no  bileve  to  the  lifte,  * 

Ne  to  the  loore  of  philosofrea, 

*  Astronomiens  al  day 
In  hir  art  faillen, 

That  whilom  warned  bifore 
What  sholde  falle  after. 

*  Shipmen  and  shepherdes. 
That  with  ship  and  sheep  wenten, 
Wisten  by  the  walkne^ 

What  sholde  bitide, 

As  of  wedres  and  wyndes 

Thei  warned  men  ofte. 

*  Tilieris,  that  tiled  the  erthe, 
Tolden  hir  maistres, 

By  the  seed  that  thei  sewe, 

What  thei  selle  niyghte. 

And  what  to  lene,  and  what  to  lyve  by, 

The  lond  was  so  trewe. 

'  Now  faileth  the  folk  of  the  flood, 
And  of  the  lond  bothe, 
Shepherdes  and  shipmen, 
And  so  do  thise  tilieris, 

*  lifU,  sky,  signs  of  weather.  '^  walkne,  clouds,  welkin. 


326 


THE   VISION   OF   PIERS  PLOUGHMAN 


Lect.  VII. 


Neither  thei  konneth  ne  knoweth 
Oon  cours  bifore  another. 

*  Astronomyens  also 
Aren  at  hir  wittes  ende, 

Of  that  was  calciiled  of  the  element 
The  contrarie  thei  fynde  ; 
Grammer,  the  ground  of  al, 
Bigileth  now  children, 
For  is  noon  of  this  newe  clerkes, 
Who  so  nymeth  hede, 
Naught  oon  among  an  hundred 
That  an  auctour  kan  construwe, 
Ne  rede  a  lettre  in  any  langage 
But  in  Latin  or  in  Englissh.' 

Verses  10,326- 
Also  the  following :  — 

For  Sarzens  han  somwhat 
Semynge  to  oure  bileve ; 
For  thei  love  and  bileve 
In  o  persone  almyghty  ; 
And  we,  lered  and  lewed, 
In  oon  God  almyghty  ; 
And  oon  Makometh,  a  man, 
In  mysbileve  broughte 
Sarzens  of  Surree, 
And  see  in  what  manere. 

*  This  Makometh  was  a  cristene 
And  for  he  moste  noght  ben  a  pope 
Into  Surrie  he  soughte, 

And  thorugh  hise  sotile  wittes 

He  daunted  ^  a  dowve, 

And  day  and  nyght  hire  fedde, 

The  corn  that  she  croppede 

He  caste  it  in  his  ere  ; 

And  if  he  among  the  peple  preched, 

Or  in  places  come, 

Thanne  wolde  the  colvere^  come 

To  the  clerkes  ere 


.10,375. 


*  daunted,  tamed. 


*  colvere,  dove. 


l.ECT.  VII.  THE  YISION   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  327 

Menynge  as  after  mete, — 

Thus  Makometh  hire  enchaiintede ; 

And  dide  folk  thanne  falle  on  knees, 

For  he  swoor  in  his  prechyng 

That  the  colvere  that  com  so, 

Com  from  God  of  hevene, 

As  messager  to  Makometh, 

Men  for  to  teche. 

And  thus  thorugh  wiles  of  his  wit. 

And  a  whit  dowve, 

Makometh  in  mysbileve 

Men  and  wommen  broughte  ; 

That  lyved  tho  there  and  lyve  yit 

Leeven  ^  on  hise  lawes. 

'  And  siththe  our  Saveour  suffred, 
The  Sarzens  so  bigiled 
Thorugh  a  cristene  clerk, 
Acorsed  in  his  soule  ! 
For  drede  of  the  deeth 
I  dare  noght  telle  truthe, 
How  Englisshe  clerkes  a  colvere  fede 
That  coveitise  highte, 
And  ben  manered  after  Makometh, 
That  no  man  useth  trouthe.' 

Verses  10,408—10,453. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  upon  the  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman, 
because  I  think  justice  has  never  been  done  to  its  great  merits 
— which  can  be  appreciated  only  by  careful  study — and  to  its 
importance  in  the  literary  history  of  England.  Although  Wright 
has  rendered  an  excellent  service  by  making  this  poem  accessible, 
and  in  the  main  intelligible,  to  common  readers,  much  labour 
ought  still  to  be  bestowed  upon  it.  A  scrupulously  literal  re- 
production of  the  best  manuscripts,  with  various  readings  from 
all  the  copies,  is  needed ;  and  few  old  English  authors  better 
deserve,  or  will  better  repay  the  careful  attention  of  English 
scholarship. 

The  Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman,  which  appeared,  as  is  supposed, 

'  leeven,  believe. 


328  THE   CREED   OF  PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

twenty  or  thirty  years  after  the  Vision,  may  or  may  not  be  a 
work  of  the  same  author.  The  style  and  diction  are  much  the 
same,  but  the  later  work  is  more  exclusively  theological,  and 
graver  in  tone,  and  it  shows  an  advance  upon  the  opinions  of 
the  earlier  poem,  harmonizing  more  unequivocally  with  the 
views  of  WyclifFe  and  the  Eeformers  of  his  school,  but  it  does 
not  seem  to  have  ever  obtained  the  wide  currency  and  influence 
of  its  predecessor. 

The  general  character  of  this  work  will  sufficiently  appear 
from  these  passages : — 

Than  thought  I  to  frayne^  the  first 
Of  this  foure  ordres  ; 
And  presed  to  the  Prechoures, 
To  proven  her  wille. 
Ich  highed  to  her  house, 
To  lierken  of  more  ; 
And  when  I  came  to  that  court, 
I  gaped  aboute, 
Swich  a  bild^  bold 
Y-buld  upon  erthe  heighte 
Say  I  nought  in  certeyn 
Syththe  a  long  tyme. 
I  semed  opon  that  hous, 
And  yerne  theron  loked, 
Whow  the  pileres  weren  y-paint, 
And  pulchud^  ful  clene, 
And  queyntly  y-corven 
With  curious  knottes ; 
With  wyndowes  wel  y-wrought, 
Wyde  up  a-lofte, 
And  thanne  I  entred  in, 
And  even  forth  wente ; 
And  al  was  walled  that  wone, 
Though  it  wild  were, 
With  posternes  in  privite 
To  pasen  when  hem  liste ; 
Orcheyardes  and  erberes 

*  frayne^  inquire  of.        *  bild,  building.        •  pulchud,  polished. 


Lect.  VII.  THE    CEEED    OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  329 

Evesed  ^  wel  clene, 

And  a  curious  cros 

Craftly  entayled, 

With  tabernacles  y-tight^ 

To  toten^  al  aboiiten. 

The  pris  of  a  plough-lond 

Of  penies  so  rounde 

To  aparaile  that  pyler 

Were  pure  litel. 

Than  I  munte*  me  forth 

The  mynstre  to  knowen, 

And  awaytede  a  woon^ 

Wonderly  wel  y-bild, 

With  arches  on  everiche  hal^ 

And  bellyche  y-corven, 

With  crochetes  on  comeres, 

With  knottes  of  gold, 

Wyde  wyndowes  y-wrought, 

Y-wryten  ful  thikke, 

Shynen  with  shapen  sheldes, 

To  shewen  aboute, 

With  merkes  of  merchauntes 

Y-medeled  betwene, 

Mo  than  twentie  and  two 

Twyse  y-noumbbred. 

Ther  is  non  heraud  that  hath 

Half  swich  a  rolle, 

Eight  as  a  rageman 

Hath  rekned  hem  newe. 

Tombes  upon  tabernacles 

Tylde  opon  lofle, 

Housed  in  homes, 

Harde  set  abouten, 

Of  armede  alabaustre 

Clad  for  the  nones, 


*  evcscd,  should  mean  provided  with  eave-troughs,  perhaps,  here,  sheltered  with 
arbours,  roofs,  or  awnings.  ^  y-tight,  furnished.  '  tabernacles  ....  to- 
ten  ;  toten  is  to  look,  and  the  phrase  means  belvederes,  look-out  towers.  **  munte, 
from  minne^i,  to  be  minded,  to  incline.  *  awaytede  a  woon,  observed  a  dwelling 
or  house. 


330  THE   CREED   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

Maad  opon  marbel 
In  many  manner  wyse, 
Knyghtes  in  tlier  conisante 
Clad  for  the  nones  ; 
AUe  it  semed  seyntes 
Y-sacred  opon  erthe ; 
And  lovely  ladies  y-wrought 
Leyen  by  her  sydes 
In  manye  gay  garnemens, 
That  weren  gold  beten. 
Though  the  tax  of  ten  yere 
"Were  trewely  y-gadered, 
Nolde  it  nought  maken  that  hous 
Half,  as  I  trowe. 
Than  cam  I  to  that  cloystre, 
And  gaped  abouten, 
Whough  it  was  pilered  and  peynt, 
And  portreyed  wel  clene, 
Al  y-hyled  with  leed 
Lowe  to  the  stones, 
And  y-paved  with  poynttyl 
Ich  point  after  other  ; 
With  cundites  of  clene  tyn 
Closed  al  aboute, 
With  lavoures  of  latun 
Loveliche  y-greithed. 
I  trowe  the  gaynage  of  the  ground 
In  a  gret  shyre 
Nold  aparaile  that  place 
Oo  poynt  tyl  other  ende. 
Thanne  was  that  chapitre  house 
Wrought  as  a  greet  chirche, 
^  Corven  and  covered, 

And  queyntelyche  entayled, 

With  semliche  selure  ^ 

Y-seet  on  lofte, 

As  a  parlement-hous 

Y-peynted  aboute. 

Thanne  ferd  I  into  fraytoure, 

*  selure,  ceiling. 


Lect.  VII.  THE   CEEED   OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  331 

And  fond  there  another, 
An  halle  for  an  hygh  kynge 
An  houshold  to  holden, 
"With"  brode  hordes  abouten 
Y-benched  wel  clene, 
"With  wyndowes  of  glaas 
"Wrought  as  a  chirche 
Than  walkede  I  ferrer, 
And  went  al  abouten, 
And  seigh  halles  full  heygh, 
And  houses  ful  noble, 
Chambres  with  chymeneys, 
And  chapeles  gaye, 
And  kychenes  for  an  high  kynge 
In  casteles  to  holden  ; 
And  her  dortoure  y-dight 
With  dores  ful  stronge  ; 
Fermerye  and  fraitur,  ^ 
With  fele  mo  houses. 
And  al  strong  ston  wal 
Sterne  upon  heithe. 
With  gaye  garites^  and  grete, 
And  iche  hole  y-glased. 
And  other  houses  y-nowe 
To  herberwe  the  queene. 
And  yet  thise  bilderes  wiln  beggea 
A  bagge  ful  of  whete 
Of  a  pure  pore  man, 
That  may  onethe  paye 
Half  his  rent  in  a  yere, 
And  half  ben  byhynde. 
Than  turned  I  ayen. 
Whan  I  hadde  all  y-toted, 
And  fond  in  a  freitoure 
A  frere  on  a  benche, 
A  greet  chorl  and  a  grym, 
Growen  as  a  tonne. 
With  a  face  so  fat 

'  fraitur,  refectory.        ^  garites,  perhaps  garrets,  but  I  think  more  probably 
turrets,  or  pinnacles. 


332  THE   CREED   OF  PIERS  PLOUGHMAN  Lect.  VII. 

As  a  fill  bleddere 

Blowen  bretful  of  breth, 

And  as  a  bagge  honged 

On  botlien  his  cliekes,  and  his  chya 

"With  a  chol  lollede 

So  greet  as  a  gos  ey, 

Growen  al  of  grece ; 

That  al  wagged  his  fleish 

As  a  quick  myre. 

His  cope,  that  bi-clypped  hym, 

Wei  clene  was  it  folden, 

Of  double  worstede  y-dyght 

Doun  to  the  hele. 

His  kyrtel  of  clene  whiit, 

Clenlyche  y-sewed, 

Hit  was  good  y-now  of  ground 

Greyn  for  to  beren. 

I  haylsede  ^  that  hirdman, 

And  hendlich  I  sayde, 

*  Gode  sire,  for  Godes  love  I 

Canstou  me  graith  tellen 

To  any  worthely  wiight 

That  wissen  me  couthe, 

Whow  I  shulde  conne  my  Crede, 

Christ  for  to  folwe. 

That  levede^  lelliche^  hymselfe 

And  lyvede  therafter, 

That  feynede  no  falshede, 

But  fully  Christ  suwede  ? 

For  sich  a  certeyn  man 

Syker  wold  I  trosten. 

That  he  wolde  telle  me  the  trewthe, 

And  turne  to  non  other. 

And  an  Austyn"^  this  ender  day 

Egged  me  faste ; 

That  he  wolde  techen  we  wel, 

He  plyght  me  his  treuthe, 

And  seyde  me  *  certeyn, 


»  haylsede,  saluted.  *  levede,  beheved.  ■  lelliche,  loyally,    lawfully. 

Austyrit  Augustine  friar. 


Lect.  VII.  THE    CREED    OF   PIERS   PLOUGHMAN  333 

Syglithen  Christ  deyed 
Oure  ordre  was  euelles 
And  erst  y-founde.' 

*  First,  felawe,'  quath  he, 
*  Fy  on  his  pilche  P 

He  is  but  abortiif, 

Eked  with  cloutes, 

He  holdeth  his  ordynaunce 

With  hores  and  theves, 

And  pnrchaseth  hem  prj'vyleges 

With  penyes  so  rounde. 

It  is  a  pur  pardoners  craft, 

Prove  and  asay  ; 

For  have  they  thy  money, 

A  moneth  therafter 

Certes,  theigh  thou  come  agen, 

He  wil  the  nought  knowen. 

But,  felaAve,  oure  foundement 

Was  first  of  the  othere, 

And  we  ben  founded  fulliche 

Withouten  fuyntise, 

And  we  ben  clerkes  y-cnowen, 

Cunnyng  in  schole, 

Proved  in  processyon 

By  processe  of  lawe. 

Of  oure  order  ther  beth 

Bichopes  wel  manye, 

Seyntes  on  sundri  stedes 

That  sufFreden  harde ; 

And  we  ben  proved  the  priis 

Of  popes  at  Kome, 

And  of  grettest  degre 

As  godspelles  telleth.' 

Lines  303—512. 

The  Pilgrim,  who  had  already  consulted  a  Minorite,  visits,  in 
turn,  the  two  remaining  orders :  the  Austyns  or  Augustins  and 
the  Carmelites,  who  abuse  the  '  Prechours '  and  the  '  Minours ' 
as  heartily  as  they  had  been  censured  by  them.     He  then  falls 

*  pilche,  fur,  or  long  napped  cloth,  cloak. 


334  POEM   ON   RICHARD   II.  Lect.    VII. 

in  with  Piers  Ploughman,  who  exposes  the  corruptions  of  mon- 
astic life,  and  dismisses  the  Pilgrim  after  having  taught  him  a 
Creed  substantially  conforming  to  that  called  *  the  Apostles'.' 

Another  poem  of  similar  metrical  structure,  but  of  exclusively 
political  character,  is  the  alliterative  allegory  on  the  abuses  of 
the  reign  of  Eichard  II.,  and  his  intended  deposition.  This  is 
an  imitation  of  the  style  and  manner  of  Piers  Ploughman,  and 
is  not  without  point  and  spirit.  The  dialect  remains  the  same, 
substantially,  though,  while  the  vocabulary  is  more  modern,  the 
grammar  is,  iu  some  respects,  more  archaic.  It  is  a  matter  of 
some  interest  to  observe  that  it  contains  many  nautical  phrases, 
used  with  a  familiarity  quite  new  to  English  literature,  and 
which  shows  that  the  increasing  navigation  and  foreign  com- 
merce of  England  were  beginning  to  exert  an  appreciable 
influence  on  the  dialect  of  books  as  well  as  of  ordinary  speech. 

The  passage  into  which  most  of  these  phrases  are  introduced 
is,  for  the  period,  almost  unique  in  its  character,  and  as  several 
of  the  technical  terms  employed  in  it  here  occur,  for  the  first 
time,  in  English,  it  may  be  worth  citing,  though  perhaps  not 
clearly  intelligible  to  mere  landsmen : — * 

and  somme  were  so  ffers 
at  the  fFrist  come, 
that  they  bente  on  a  bonet, 
and  bare  a  topte  saile 
afFor  the  wynde  fFresshely, 

*•  In  the  Glossarial  Remarks  and  Emendations,  Layamon  III.  476,  Sir  F. 
Madden  quotes  these  lines  from  a  manuscript  which  has  never  been  printed :  — 

Then  he  tron  on  tho  trees,  and  thay  her  tramme  reechen ; 
Cachen  vp  the  crossayl,  cables  thay  casten ; 
Wi5t  at  the  wyndas  weren  her  ankres, 
Sprude  spak  to  the  sprete,  the  spare  bawe-lyne ; 
Gederen  to  the  gyde-ropes,  the  grete  cloth  falles ; 
Thay  lay  den  in  on  ladde  borde,  and  the  lofe  Wynnes ; 
The  blythe  brethe  at  her  bak,  the  bosum  he  fyndes ; 
He  swenges  me  thys  swete  schip  swefte  fro  the  hauen. 

Is  ladde  borde  the  primitive  form  of  larboard  ?  If  so,  it  is  a  step  towards  the 
etymology  of  that  obscure  word. 


Lect.  VII.  THE   COMPLAINT   OF  THE   PLOUGHMAN  335 

to  make  a  good  ffare. 

Than  lay  the  lordis  alee 

with  laste  and  with  charge, 

and  bare  aboujte  the  barge, 

and  blamed  the  maister, 

that  knewe  not  the  kynde  cours 

that  to  the  crafte  longid, 

and  warned  him  wisely 

of  the  wedir  side. 

Thanne  the  maste  in  the  myddis, 

at  the  monthe  ende, 

bowid  fFor  brestynge, 

and  brou^te  hem  to  lond ; 

ffor  ne  had  thei  striked  a  strake, 

and  sterid  hem  the  better, 

and  abated  a  bonet, 

or  the  blast  come, 

they  had  be  throwe  overe  the  borde, 

backewarde  ichonne. 

The  volume  of  Political  Poems  and  Songs  from  which  the 
above  lines  are  taken  contains  an  irregularly  alliterative  poem, 
in  eight-lined  stanzas,  called  the  Complaint  of  the  Ploughman. 
This  was  formerly  ascribed  to  Chaucer,  and  exists  in  no  earlier 
form  than  in  printed  editions  of  the  fifteenth  century,  although 
it  probably  belongs,  as  originally  written,  to  the  reign  of 
Richard  II.  It  is  a  satire  on  the  abuses  of  Church  and  State, 
but  is  worthy  neither  of  the  name  it  claims  nor  of  the  author 
to  whom  it  has  been  attributed. 

I  am  not  acquainted  with  any  poem  resembling  Piers  Plough- 
man in  poetic  form,  of  later  date  than  the  fourteenth  century, 
which  is  worthy  of  notice,  though  there  were  several  attempts 
at  imitation  of  this  rhythm  and  metre  in  subsequent  ages. 

I  have  already  adverted  to  the  remarkable  circumstance,  that, 
though  many  political  songs  and  satires  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury, of  a  popular  cast,  were  in  English,  a  large  proportion  of 
the  most  important  poems  of  this  class  in  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.  were  in  French  or  in  Latin. 


336  POLITICAL  POETRY  Lect.  VII. 

This  may  probably  be  explained  by  tbe  fact,  that  many  of 
them  relate  to  events  or  measures  of  policy,  the  connection  of 
which  with  the  material  well-being  of  the  commonalty  was  not 
very  obvious,  and  which  therefore  did  not  much  excite  the 
interest  of  the  English-speaking  people,  but  appealed  rather  to 
the  passions,  the  opinions,  the  principles  of  the  governing 
classes,  who  were  generally,  no  doubt,  better  instructed  in 
written  French  and  Latin  than  in  the  native  tongue. 

These  classes,  indeed^  at  the  period  we  are  now  treating  of, 
certainly  sjpohe  English  habitually,  but  they  had  not  cultivated 
it  as  a  governmental  or  official  organ  of  communication,  and  it 
was  therefore  essentially  unfit  for  the  discussion  of  political 
subjects.  Such  topics  found  much  better  vehicles  in  Latin  and 
in  French,  which  latter  tongue,  as  we  have  seen,  had  gradually 
been  trained  up  to  a  power  of  expression  that  had  enabled  it  to 
compete  with  Latin  as  a  learned  and  universal  speech. 

Froissart,  in  describing  his  presentation  of  a  volume  of  his 
poems  to  Eichard  IL,  observes,  as  a  noteworthy  circumstance, 
that  the  King  'loked  in  it  and  reed  yt  in  many  places,  for  he 
coulde  speke  and  rede  French  very  well ; '  and  in  the  same 
paragraph  he  mentions  Henry  Cast3^de,  an  English  squire,  as  an 
'  honest  man  and  a  wyse,  and  coud  well  speke  Frenche.'  *  But 
the  same  chronicler  informs  us  that  the  negotiations  for  the 
peace  of  1393  were  conducted  in  French,  and  that  the  English 
commissioners  were  much  embarrassed  by  their  want  of  a  know- 
ledge of  the  niceties  and  subtleties  of  that  language. 

*  '  Than  the  kynge  desyred  to  se  my  booke  that  I  had  brought  for  hyin ;  so  he 
sawe  it  in  his  chambre,  for  I  had  layde  it  there  redy  on  his  bedde.  Whanne  the 
kynge  opened  it,  it  pleased  hym  well,  for  it  was  fayre  enlumyned  and  written,  and 
couered  with  crymson  veluet,  with  ten  botons  of  syluer  and  gylte,  and  roses  of 
golde  in  the  myddes,  wj-th  two  great  elapses  gylte,  rychely  wroiighte.  Than  the 
kyng  demaunded  me  whereof  it  treated,  and  I  shewed  hym  how  it  treated  maters 
of  loue ;  wherof  the  kynge  was  gladde  and  loked  in  it,  and  reed  y t  in  many  places, 
for  he  coulde  speke  and  rede  French  very  well ;  and  he  tooke  yt  to  a  knyght  of  hys 
chambre,  named  Syr  Eicharde  Creadon,  to  bcare  it  into  hys  secrete  chambre.' — 
Lord  Berners's  Froissart,  chap,  cxcviii.  Keprint  of  1812,  vol.  n.,  chap.  ccii. 
p.  619. 


Lect.  VII.  USE   OF   FRENCH   IN   ENGLAND  337 

*  The  englysshemen,'  says  he,  '  had  moche  payne  to  here  and  to 
vnderstande  the  frenchemen,  who  were  full  of  subtyle  wordes,  and 
cloked  perswacions  and  double  of  vnderstandynge,  the  whiche  the 
frenchemen  wolde  toiirne  as  they  lyst  to  their  profyte  and  aduauntage, 
whiche  englysshemen  vse  nat  in  their  langage,  for  their  speche  and 
entent  is  playne ;  and  also  the  englisshmen  were  enfourmed  that  the 
Frenchemen  had  nat  alwayes  vpholden  the  artycles,  promyses  and  con- 
dycyons,  ratyfied  in  the  artycles  of  peace;  yet  the  frenchmen  wolde 
ever  fynde  one  poynte  or  other  in  their  writynges,  by  some  subtyle 
cloked  worde,  affermynge  that  the  englysshemen  had  broken  the  peace, 
and  nat  they ;  wherfore  whan  the  englysshemen  sawe  or  herde  in  the 
frenchemens  writynges  any  darke  or  cloked  worde,  they  made  it  to  be 
examyned  by  such  as  were  profoundly  lerned  in  the  lawe,  and  if  they 
founde  it  amysse,  they  caused  it  to  be  canselled  and  amended,  to  the 
entent  they  wolde  leaue  nothynge  in  trouble ;  and  the  englysshmen,  to 
excuse  themselfe,  wolde  say,  that  frenchemen  lernynge  such  subtylties 
in  their  youth  muste  nedes  be  more  subtyle  than  they.'* 

The  poems  which  we  have  now  been  considering,  and  others 
of  minor  importance,  though  of  kindred  spirit,  contributed  their 
share  to  the  extension  of  the  English  vocabulary,  to  the  flexi- 
bility of  the  syntax,  and  to  the  various  culture  of  the  English 
people,  and  thus  prepared  the  speech  and  the  nation  for  the  re- 
ception of  the  controversial  writings  and  the  scriptural  versions 
of  the  Wycliffite  school,  the  influence  of  which  on  the  Jangoage 
and  literature  of  England  will  be  examined  in  the  next  lec- 
ture. 

NOTE   ON   THE   ITALIAN    DIALECTS. 

It  is  difficult  for  Englishmen  and  Anglo-Americans,  who  habitually 
speak  much  as  they  write,  and  write  much  as  they  speak,  to  conceive 
of  the  co-existence  of  two  dialects  in  a  people,  one  almost  uniformly 
employed  in  conversation,  the  other  almost  as  exclusively  in  writing. 
Yet  such  was  the  state  of  things  in  England,  from  the  Conquest  at 
least  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  such  is  the  case  in 
a  large  part  of  Europe  at  this  day.  In  Italy,  for  instance,  there  is 
almost  everywhere  a  popular  speech,  commonly  employed  by  all  classes 

*  Lord  Berners's  Froissart,  chap,  cxcv.,  reprint  of  1812,  vol.  ii,  pp.  599,  600. 
See  note  on  Italian  dialects  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


338 


ITALIAN  DIALECTS 


Lect.  VII. 


in  familiar  oral  intercourse,  and  so  far  cultivated  that  it  can  be,  though  it 
rarely  is,  written,  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  lingua  comune  d'lta- 
lia,  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  the  Tuscan  dialect,  is  known  to  all,  as  the 
language  of  books,  of  journals,  and  of  correspondence,  and  is  also  em- 
ployed as  the  medium  of  religious  and  scholastic  instruction.  But  this 
literary  tongue,  at  least  in  those  parts  of  Italy  where  dialects  widely 
diiFerent  from  it  are  habitually  spoken,  always  remains  to  the  Italians 
themselves  essentially  a  foreign  language.  This  fact  Biondelli  states  in 
stronger  terms  than  a  prudent  stranger  would  venture  to  do  upon  the 
testimony  of  his  own  observation.  '  Tanto  e  vero  che,  per  parlare  e 
scrivere  italianamente,  dobbiamo  imparare  questa  nostra  lingua  con 
lunghi  e  laboriosi  studj,  poco  meno  che  se  apprendessimo  la  latina  o  la 
francese ;  e  a  malgrado  dell'  affinita  sua  coi  nostri  dialetti  e  del  con- 
tinuo  leggere,  scrivere  e  parlare  1'  italiano,  ben  pochi  giungono  a  trattarlo 
come  conviensi,  e  grandi  e  frequent!  sono  le  difficulta  che  incontriamo 
ogniqualvolta  vogliamo  esporre  con  chiarezza  e  proprieta  le  nostre  idee, 
poiche  veramente  dobbiamo  tradurre  il  nostro  dialetto  in  altra  lingua, 
vale  a  dire,  rappresentare  sotto  diversa  forma  i  nostri  pensieri.' — Bion- 
delli, Saggio  sui  Dialetti  Gallo-Italici,  x. 

There  is  a  similar  discrepancy  between  the  written  and  spoken  lan- 
guage in  many  parts  of  Germany,  though  the  diffusion  of  literary  cul- 
ture in  that  country  has  made  the  dialect  of  books  more  universally 
familiar  than  in  most  European  nations.  The  traveller  Seetzen,  whose 
jouraals  have  lately  been  published,  sometimes  makes  entries  in  them 
in  the  Platt-Deutsch  of  his  native  province,  and  states  expressly  that 
he  uses  that  dialect  in  order  that  those  passages  may  not  be  understood 
by  strangers  into  whose  hands  his  papers  might  chance  to  fall. 


LECTUEE  Vm. 

WYCLIFFE   AND   HIS   SCHOOL. 

We  come  now  to  a  period  when  far  other  necessities  than  those 
of  imaginative  literature,  of  mechanical  or  decorative  art,  or  of 
any  interest  of  material  life,  demanded  the  formation  of  a  new 
special  nomenclature — a  nomenclature  and  a  phraseology,  which, 
though  first  employed  in  a  limited  range  of  themes  and  dis- 
cussions, yet,  from  the  intimate  relation  of  those  themes  to  all 
the  higher  aspirations  of  humanity,  gradually  acquired  more 
extended  significance  and  more  varied  applications,  and  finally 
became,  in  great  part,  incorporated  into  the  general  speech  as 
a  new  enlivening  and  informing  element. 

I  refer  to  the  theological  vocabulary  of  Wycliffe  and  his  dis- 
ciples, which,  in  a  considerable  proportion  indeed,  was  composed 
of  words  already  familiar  to  the  clergy  and  the  better  instructed 
laity,  but  which  those  reformers  popularized,  and  at  the  same 
time  enlarged  and  modified,  by  new  terms  coined  or  borrowed 
for  use  in  their  translations  of  the  Scriptures,  and  by  imposing 
on  already  known  words  new,  or  at  least  special  acceptations. 

The  Anglo-Saxons  possessed  a  vernacular  translation  of  the 
Gospels,  and  of  some  other  parts  of  the  Bible ;  and  several 
more  or  less  complete  versions  of  the  Scriptures  existed  in 
French  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century.  But  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  any  considerable  portion  of  the  Bible,  except  the 
Psalter,  had  ever  been  rendered  into  English,  until  the  trans- 
lation of  the  whole  volume  was  undertaken,  at  the  suggestion 
of  Wycliffe,  and  in  part  by  his  own  efforts,  a  little  before  the 

z  2 


340 


ENGLAND  INDEPENDENT  OP  ROME 


Lect.  VIII. 


beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  fourteenth  century.  English 
preachers,  it  is  true,  had  always  freely  introduced  into  their 
sermons  quotations  from  the  vulgate,  translated  for  the  occasion 
by  themselves,  and  thus  the  people  had  already  become  somewhat 
familiarized  with  the  contents  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament ; 
but  these  sermons  were  rarely  copied  for  circulation,  or  probably 
even  written  down  at  all,  and  therefore  no  opportunity  existed 
for  the  study  or  consultation  of  the  Bible  as  an  English  book.* 
The  English  nation,  for  reasons  stated  in  a  former  lecture, 
had  always  been  practically  more  independent  of  the  papacy 
than  the  Continental  states.  The  schism  in  the  church,  with 
the  long  struggle  between  the  claimants  to  the  chair  of  Peter — 
each  of  whom  denounced  his  rival  as  an  anti-pope,  and  excom- 
municated his  followers  as  heretics  —  naturally  much  weakened 
the  authority  of  both  the  contending  parties.  Men  were  not 
only  at  liberty,  but  found  themselves  compelled,  to  inquire  which 
was  the  true  head  of  the  church,  and  they  could  not  investigate 
the  title  of  the  respective  claimants  to  ecclesiastical  supre- 
macy, without  being  very  naturally  led  to  doubt  whether  either 


*  The  translations  of  the  texts  cited  by  Wycliffe  himself,  in  the  controversial 
works  most  confidently  ascribed  to  him,  by  no  means  agree  literally  with  the 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  a  part  of  the  Old,  which  he  is  believed  to 
have  executed.  See  Introduction  to  Madden  and  Forshall's  edition  of  the 
Wycliffite  Translations.  Comparisons  of  this  sort  have  often  been  appealed  to  as  a 
test  of  the  authenticity  of  writings  attributed  to  his  pen.  But  they  seem  to  me 
to  be  entitled  to  very  little  weight.  WycliiFe  WTote  much  before  he  made  his 
translation,  and  his  later  works  must  often  have  been  WTitten  when  he  could  not 
have  had  that  translation  with  him.  The  '  pore  caityf,'  as  he  humbly  calls  himself, 
certainly  did  not  regard  his  own  version  with  the  reverence  with  which  we  view 
it ;  and  a  good  biblical  scholar  like  him,  finding  a  Latin  scriptural  text  in  an 
author  he  was  refuting,  or  having  occasion  to  use  one  which  occurred  to  him, 
would,  in  the  fervour  of  composition,  write  down  the  translation  which,  at  the 
moment,  presented  itself,  and  which  the  argument  in  hand  suggested  as  the  truest 
expression  of  the  meaning. 

Few  authors  are  vain  enough  to  be  disposed  to  quote  or  repeat  their  own  words, 
or  even  the  words  of  another  which  they  have  ma!le  their  own  by  translation,  and 
I  think  a  writer  of  the  present  day  would  sooner  re-translate  a  passage  from  an 
ancient  author  he  wished  to  quote,  than  unshelf  a  volume,  and  copy  a  citation 
which  he  had  translated  on  a  former  occasion.  A  discrepancy,  therefore,  between 
a  text  quoted  by  Wycliffe  and  his  own  formal  translation  of  it  elsewhere,  affords 
no  presumption  against  the  authenticity  of  a  manuscript  attributed  to  him. 


Lect.  VIII.  POPE   AND   ANTI-POPE  341 

of  them  was  better  than  a  usurper.  The  decision  of  the  im- 
mediate question  between  the  rival  pontiffs  turned,  in  the  end, 
more  on  political  than  on  canonical  grounds*;  but  while  it 
was  under  discussion,  the  whole  doctrine  of  papal  supremacy 
underwent  a  sifting,  that  revealed  to  thousands  the  sandy  nature 
of  the  foundation  on  which  it  rested.  A  result  more  important 
than  the  particular  conclusions  arrived  at,  as  between  the  claims 
of  Urban  and  Clement,  was,  that  the  controversy  taught  and 
habituated  thinking  ecclesiastics,  and,  by  their  example,  the 
laity,  to  exercise  their  reason  upon  topics  which  had  before 
been  generally  considered  as  points  which  it  was  blasphemous 
even  to  debate. 

The  habit  of  unquestioning  submission  to  the  decrees  of  a 
church  which  arrogated  to  .  itself  infallibility  of  opinion,  and 
binding  authority  of  judgment,  upon  religious  questions  whose 

*  Capgrave  gives  us  a  specimen  of  tlie  arguments  —  rationes  regum,  or  rather, 
ad  rcgcs  —  employed  by  Pope  and  Anti-Pope  with  the  sovereigns  of  their  respective 
parties. 

'Also  he  notified  onto  the  Kyng  [Richard  II.],  that  the  Antipope  and  the  Kyng 
of  Frauns  be  thus  accordid,  that  the  seid  Kyng  of  Frauns,  with  help  of  the  duke 
of  Burgony,  and  othir,  schul  set  the  Antipope  in  the  sete  at  Rome ;  and  the  same 
Antipope  schal  make  the  Kyng  of  Frauns  emperoure,  and  othir  dukes  he  schal 
endewe  in  the  lordchippis  of  Itaile.  Also,  he  enformed  the  King  what  perel 
schuld  falle  if  the  Antipope  and  the  Kyng  were  thus  acorded,  and  the  Kyng  of 
Frauns  emperoure,  —  lie  sehuld  be  that  wey  chalenge  the  dominion  of  Ynglond. 
Therefor  the  Pope  counceleth  the  King,  that  he  schal  make  no  pes  with  the 
Kyng  of  Frauns  but  on  this  condicion,  that  the  King  of  Frauns  schal  favoure  the 
opinion  of  the  trewe  Pope,  and  suffir  non  of  his  puple  to  fite  ageyn  him.' — 
Capgrave,  a.d.  1390,  pp.  255,  256. 

It  should  be  added  that,  on  the  same  occasion,  the  Pope  asked  in  vain  for  the 
repeal  of  the  famous  statutes,  Quare  impcdit  and  Premuniri  facias,  so  important 
to  the  liberties  of  England. 

'  The  Pope  merveyled  mech  of  certeyn  statutes  which  were  mad  in  this  lond 
ageyn  the  liberte  of  the  cherch  ;  and  for  the  Pope  supposed  that  it  was  not  the 
Kyngis  wil,  therefor  he  sent  his  messagere  to  stere  the  Kyng  that  swech  statutes 
schuld  be  abrogat  whech  be  ageyn  the  liberte  of  Holy  Cherch,  specially  these 
two,  "  Quare  impedit"  and  "  Premunire  facias."  ' 

The  moment  was  ill  chosen  for  asking  a  concession,  which,  under  almost  any 
circumstances,  would  have  been  too  much  for  the  sturdy  independence  of  Eng- 
land; and  though  the  request  was  enforced  by  the  hint  above  mentioned,  the 
chronicler  informs  us  that,  '  as  for  promociones  of  hem  that  dwelled  at  Rome,  it 
wold  not  be  graunted;  but,  for  favoure  of  the  Pope,  thei  graunted  him  his  pro- 
vysiones  til  the  nexte  Farlemenf — Capgrave,  iibi  supra. 


342  PRINCIPLE   OF  AUTHORITY  Lect.  VI 1 1. 

comprehension  demands  the  exercise  of  man's  highest  faculties, 
had  naturally  begotten  a  spirit  of  deference  to  the  dicta  of 
great  names  in  secular  learning  also.  This  deference  character- 
ized the  mass  of  the  original  literature  of  the  Continent  through 
the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  in  discussions  upon  questions  of  natural 
knowledge,  of  history,  of  criticism,  the  opinions  of  eminent 
writers  were  commonly  cited,  not  as  arguments,  or  even  as  the 
testimony  of  competent  witnesses  to  facts  of  observation,  but  as 
binding  conclusions,  scarcely  less  irrefragable  or  less  sacred  than 
the  inspired  infallibility  of  a  pontiff.  Habitual  submission  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  secular  names,  as,  for  example,  to  the  opi- 
nions of  Aristotle  in  physics  and  metaphysics,  was  politicly 
encouraged  and  inculcated  by  the  church,  not  merely  because 
particular  metaphysico-theological  dogmas  of  Rome  found  sup- 
port in  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  but  because  such  submission 
was  a  practical  recognition  of  the  principle  of  authority  in  all 
moral  and  intellectual  things.  Just  so,  in  the  public  policy  of 
our  times,  the  governing  classes,  in  some  states  liberal  in  their 
own  domestic  administration,  sustain  the  usurped  dominion  of 
certain  dynasties  over  foreign  territory,  not  because  they  believe 
the  right  or  approve  the  oppressions  of  those  dynasties,  but 
because  their  rule  is  an  embodiment  of  the  aristocratic  prin- 
ciple in  government,  and  is  therefore  the  representative  and  ally 
of  aristocracy  everywhere. 

The  shock  given  to  the  dominion  of  the  papal  see,  by  the 
schism  and  the  discussions  occasioned  by  that  event,  did  much 
to  weaken  the  authority  of  human  names  in  letters  and  in 
philosophy;  and  it  happened  at  a  very  favourable  juncture  for 
English  literature,  which  thus,  at  its  very  birth,  acquired  an 
independence,  and  consequently  an  originality,  that  a  half- 
century  earlier  or  later  it  would  not  have  attained. 

The  literature  which  belongs  to  the  civilization  of  modern 
Europe  is  essentially  Protestant,  because  it  almost  uniformly 
originated,  if  not  in  a  formal  revolt  against  the  power  of  physi- 
cal coercion  exerted  by  the  church,  at  least  in  a  protest  against 
the  morally  binding  obligation  of  her  decrees,  and  its  earliest 


Lect.  VIII.  WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS  343 

expression  was  a  denunciation  of  those  abuses  which  had  con- 
verted her,  from  a  nursing  mother  of  the  best  and  holiest 
affections  of  the  heart,  into  a  worldly,  ambitious,  self-seeking, 
rapacious,  and  oppressive  organization.  It  is  only  when  men 
are  emancipated  from  humiliating  spiritual  servitude,  that  the 
intellect  can  be  set  free;  and  the  training,  which  the  unobstructed 
investigation  and  discussion  of  theological  doctrine  involves,  is 
the  most  powerful  of  all  methods  of  intellectual  culture. 

The  Wycliffite  translations  were  made  from  the  Latin  of  the 
vulgate.*  There  is  not  much  reason  to  suppose  that  any  of  the 
persons  engaged  in  this  work  knew  enough  of  Greek,  still  less 
of  Hebrew,  to  translate  directly  from  those  languages;  and 
consequently  the  new  syntactical  combinations  they  introduced 
are  all  according  to  the  Latin  idiom,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
dialect  of  the  vulgate  itself  had  been  modified  by  the  influence 
of  the  Grreek  and  Hebrew  texts  on  which  it  was  founded.  But 
the  translators  often  resorted  to  commentators  for  explanation, 
and  thus  sometimes  became  acquainted  with  Hebraisms  at 
second  hand;  and  the  latest  revision  of  the  version,  that  of 
Purvey,  is  by  no  means  a  slavish  copy  of  the  literal  sense  of  the 
vulgate,  while  it  weeded  out,  without  scruple,  a  large  proportion 
of  the  Latinisms  which  the  first  translators  had  introduced  into 
their  renderings  from  an  anxious  desire  for  strict  conformity  to 
a  text  recognized  by  the  church  as  of  equal  authority  with  the 
sacred  original  itself. 

I  cannot  go  into  a  history  of  these  versions  on  the  present 
occasion,  or  examine  the  evidence  on  the  question :  how  far 
John  Wycliffe  w^as  personally  concerned  in  the  execution  of 
them.  It  must  suffice  to  say  that  in  the  only  entirely  trustworthy 
edition  we  possess  of  any  of  them — the  liber  vere  aureus, 

*  By  vulgate,  I  here  mean  the  Latin  translation  adopted  by  the  church  and 
ascribed  to  Jerome,  so  far  as  the  manuscripts  then  in  circulation  could  be  identified 
with  it.  But  the  copies  of  the  Scriptures,  as  of  secular  works,  were  often  widely 
discrepant,  even  when  professedly  transcribed  from  the  same  original  —  a  cir- 
cumstance which  explains  how  the  '  symple  creature,'  mentioned  in  a  passage 
quoted  at  length  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  lecture,  '  hadde  myche  trauaile ' 
*  to  make  oo  Latyn  bible  sumdel  trewe.' 


344 


PROTESTANT   LITERATURE 


Lect,  VIII. 


the  golden  book,  of  Old-English  philology  —  that,  namely, 
published  at  Oxford  in  1850,  in  four  quarto  volumes,  under  the 
editorship  of  Forshall  and  Madden,  the  older  text,  from  Genesis 
to  Baruch  iii.  20,  is  believed  to  be  the  work  of  Hereford,  an 
English  ecclesiastic;*  the  remainder  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  Apocrypha  is  supposed,  and  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament 
almost  certainly  known,  to  have  been  translated  by  Wycliffe ; 
while  the  later  text  of  the  entire  Bible  is  ascribed  to  Purvey. 
The  precise  periods  of  the  beginning  and  ending  of  a  work, 
which  must  have  occupied  many  years  in  its  execution,  have 
not  been  ascertained,  but  we  have  reason  to  think  that  the  older 
text  was  completed  about  1380,  the  revision  by  Purvey  some 
eight  or  ten  years  later,  or  a  little  before  1390. 

These  translations  must,  in  spite  of  the  great  cost  of  copying 
them,  have  been  very  widely  circulated ;  for  old  manuscripts  of 
them  are  still  very  numerous,  although  we  know  that,  for  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  after  the  work  was  done,  unwearied  pains  were 
taken  by  the  Eomish  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  secure  the  de- 
struction of  every  trace  of  this  heretical  version. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  circumstance  in  the  history  of  the  literature 
of  Protestant  countries,  that,  in  every  one  of  them,  the  creation 
or  revival  of  a  national  literature  has  commenced  with,  or  at 
least  been  announced  by,  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into 
the  vernacular,  which  has  been  remarkable  both  as  an  accurate 
representative  of  the  original  text,  and  as  an  exhibition  of  the 
best  power  of  expression  possessed  by  the  language  at  that  stage 
of  its  development.  Hence,  in  all  those  countries,  these  ver- 
sions have  had  a  very  great  influence,  not  only  upon  religious 
opinion  and  moral  training,  but  upon  literary  effort  in  other 

*  Hereford's  portion,  the  original  manuscript  of  which  is  still  extant,  ends  abi'uptly 
with  the  second  word  of  the  chapter  and  verse  above  mentioned :  '  The  jonge.' 

I  make  the  statement  in  the  text  in  deference  to  the  authority  of  the  editors  of 
tlie  Wycliffite  translations ;  but  I  think  the  internal  eviden9e  is  against  the  sup- 
position that  the  older  version,  from  Genesis  to  Baruch,  was  the  work  of  one  man. 
There  are  important  grammatical  differences  between  the  historical  books,  down 
to  Paralipomena  inclusive,  and  the  remainder  of  that  version.  For  instance,  in 
the  former,  the  active  participle  generally  ends  in  ynge  ;  in  the  latter,  it  usually 
terminates  in  cnde. 


Lect.  VIII.  PEOTESTANT  BIBLES  345 

fields,  and  indeed  upon  the  whole  philological  history  of  the 
nation.  Thus  the  English  translations  of  the  Wycliffite  school, 
the  Danish  version  of  1550,  and  the  Grerman  of  Luther,  are, 
linguistically  considered,  among  the  very  best  examples  of  the 
most  cultivated  phase,  and  most  perfected  form,  of  their  re- 
spective languages  at  the  times  when  they  appeared.  The 
German  and  the  Danish  Bibles  have,  indeed,  exerted  a  much 
more  important  literary  influence  than  the  Wycliffite.  But 
this  is  due,  not  more  to  superior  excellence,  than  to  the  fact 
that  the  former  translations  appeared  after  the  invention 
of  printing,  and  were  consequently  easily  and  cheaply  multi- 
plied and  distributed;  and  further  that  their  circulation  was 
encouraged  and  promoted  by  both  the  temporal  and  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities  of  the  countries  where  they  were  published. 
The  Wycliffite  versions,  on  the  other  hand,  existed  only  in 
manuscript  during  a  period  of  between  four  and  five  centuries, 
and,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  could  be  copied  and  circu- 
lated only  at  great  hazard  to  both  transcriber  and  reader. 

The  excellence  of  translation,  which  was  a  necessary  condition 
of  the  literary  influence  of  all  these  versions,  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  two  principal  causes.  The  first  is  the  obvious  one,  that  the 
translators,  as  well  as  the  public,  were  in  a  state  of  great  reli- 
gious sensibility,  and  inspired  by  the  feeling  of  intellectual 
exaltation  and  expansion,  which  always  accompanies  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  mind  and  conscience  from  the  galling  shackles 
of  spiritual  despotism.  The  other  is  the  less  familiar  fact,  that 
the  three  languages  were  then  marked  by  a  simplicity  of  voca- 
bulary and  of  verbal  combination,  which  more  nearly  agreed 
with  the  phraseology  of  the  original  Scriptures  than  does  the 
artificial  and  complicated  diction  of  later  ages ;  and  of  course 
they  exhibit  a  closer  resemblance  to  the  Hebrew  and  Grreek 
texts  than  would  be  practicable  with  a  more  modern  style  of 
expression,  and  with  a  greater  number  of  words  more  specific 
in  meaning  and  less  capable  of  varied  application.* 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  XXVIII,  p.  635. 


r^  n  \\ 


346 


"WTCLIFFITE   TEANSLATIONS 


Lect.  VIII. 


I  have  already  occupied  so  large  a  portion  of  this  course  in 
treating  of  the  earlier  forms  of  the  English  language  and  lite- 
rature, that  I  cannot  go  much  into  detail  with  regard  to  the 
peculiarities  of  the  diction  of  the  Wycliffite  Scriptures ;  but  the 
most  important  of  them  will  appear  from  an  examination  of 
Wycliffe's  and  Purvey's  versions  of  a  chapter  from  the  Grospels, 
and  a  comparison  of  them  with  other  translations. 

I  select  the  eighth  chapter  of  Matthew  for  this  purpose,  and 
for  the  convenience  of  comparison  I  give  :  1.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
version,  from  the  Grospel  of  Matthew  printed  at  the  University 
Press  at  Cambridge,  in  1858 ; — 2.  a  word-for-word  English  trans- 
lation of  the  Anglo-Saxon  text ;  —  3.  "Wycliffe's  translation ;  — 
4.  Purvey's  revision;  — and  5.  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate,  from 
Stier  and  Theile,  1854.  I  add,  by  way  of  further  illustration,  at 
the  end  of  this  lecture,  the  Moeso-Gothic  of  Ulfilas,  and  the 
original  Grreek.  Tyndale's  and  Choke's  translations  of  the  same 
chapter  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  Lecture  XL 

THE  EIGHTH  CHAPTER  OF  MATTHEW. 
I. 

1.  SoSlice       pa      se  Haelend    of  fam   munte  nySer-astah,  fa 

2.  (For-)sooth  when  the  Saviour  from  the  mount  came-down,  there 

3.  Forsothe    when  Jhesus  hadde  comen  doun  fro  the  hil, 

4.  But      whanne        Jhesus     was    come    doun  fro  the  hil, 

5.  Cum  autem  descendisset       de  monte, 

1.  fyligdon      him     mycle     ma3nio. 

2.  followed      him      great  multitudes. 

3.  many  cumpanyes  fole widen    hym. 

4.  mych       puple  suede       hym. 
5.  secuta)  sunt  cum  turbaa  multce. 


II. 

1.  Da      genealaehte  in  hreofla  to  him  and  hine  to  him 

2.  Then         nighed      a      leper     to  him  and  him(-self )    to  him 

3.  And  loo  !       a    leprouse     man     cummynge      worshipide 

4.  And  loo !      a    leprouse     man       cam  and       worschipide 
5.    Et  ecce !  leprosus  veniens  adorabat 


Lect.  VIII. 


WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLA 


347 


1.  ge-ea(5medde,  and   J>iis   cwseiS ;     Drihten,      gyf  ]?u 

2.  humbled,  and  thus  spake ;       Lord,          if  thou 

3.  hym,  sayinge ;                 Lord,         ^if  thou 

4.  hym,  •  and  seide ;                Lord,          if  thou 
5.  eum,  dicens ;                Domino,        si 

1.  wylt,      fu  miht      m^     geclsensian. 

2.  "wilt,    thou  canst      me        cleanse. 

3.  wolt,  thou  maist     make  me  clene. 

4.  wolt,  thou  maist     make    me  clene. 


5.  vis, 


potes 


me   mundare. 
III. 


1.  Da       astrehte       se    Hajlend  hys  hand,  and  hrepode  hyue 

2.  Then  outstretched  the  Saviour  his  hand,  and  touched    him 

3.  And   Jhesus    holdynge   forthe  the  hond,  touchide  hym 

4.  And   Jhesus       helde       forth    the  hoond,  and  touchide  hym, 
5.  Et  extendens     Jesus  manum,  tetigit     eum 

1.  and  'pus  cwaeS,  Ic  wylle ;       beo  geclsensod.  And       hys 

2.  and  thus  spake,     I  will ;  be     cleansed.  And        his 

3.  sayinge,  I  wole ;     be  thou  maad  clene.     And     anoon 

4.  and  seide,  Y  wole ;    be  thou  maad  cleene.    And     anoon 
5.         dicens,  Volo;  mundare.  Et   confestim 

1.  hreofla  waes        hraedlice  geclsensod. 

2.  leprosy  was    immediately        cleansed. 

3.  the    lepre    of     hym     was     clensid. 

4.  the    lepre    of     him      was      clensid. 
5.  mundata      est      lepra      ejus. 


IV. 

1.  Da       cw^6    se     Haelend  to    him, 

2.  Then  said     the  Saviour  to    him, 

3.  And  Jhesus      saith      to      hym ; 

4.  And  Jhesus      seide      to      hym ; 
5.    Et  ait  illi  Jesus; 

1.  hyt    nsenegum     men     ne     secge ; 

2.  it     (to)     no        man  tell; 
8.             to      no        man; 

4.  to      no        man; 

5.  dixeris ; 


"Wama  ]?e 

faet    \>VL 

See 

that  thou 

See, 

say  thou 

Se, 

seie  thou 

Vide, 

nemini 

ac     gang 

,     a^teowde 

but    go. 

show 

but     go. 

shewe 

but     go. 

shewe 

sed  vade,     ostende 


348 


WTCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS 


Lect.  VIII. 


1.  J>e       J>am     sacerde,  and  bring  hym  fa       lac        pe  Moyses 

2.  thee  (to)  the    priest,  and  bring  him  the      gift     that  Moses 

3.  thee  to  prestis,  and  oiFre  that    jifte     that  Moyses 

4.  thee  to    the  prestis,  and  ofFre  the      jift      that  Moyses 
5.     te           sacerdoti,         et     offer                     munus  quod 

1.  bebead,  on  hyra        gecySnesse. 

2.  bad,  for  their         information. 

3.  comaimdide,     into  witnessing  to  hem. 
4:.  comamidide,      in     witnessyng  to  hem. 

5.  praecepit  Moyses,  in  testimonium  illis. 


1.  SoSlice  ]>a       se     Hselend       ineode      on     Capharnaum, 

2.  (For-)sooth    when    the    Saviour      went-in      to      Capernaum, 

3.  Sothely        when  he         hadde  entride  in  to  Capharnaum, 

4.  And  whanne         he  hadde  entrid   in  to  Cafarnaum, 
5.         Cum     autem                      introisset  Capharnaum, 

1.  |7a  *  genealjehte       hym       an   hundredes     ealdor,      hyne 

2.  there     nighed       (to)  him     a     hundred's     captain,     him 

3.  centurio  neijide  to     hym 

4.  the  centurien         neijede  to     him 
5.                accessit        ad         eum         centurio 

1.  biddende, 

2.  praying, 

3.  preyinge  hym, 

4.  and  preiede  him, 

5.  rogans     eum, 

VI. 

1.  And     ]?us     cwet5ende,  Drihten,  min  cnapa     liS  on  minum 

2.  And    thus      saying,        Lord,  my  knave  lieth  in        my 
Lord,  my  child    lyeth  in  the 
Lord,  my  childe  lijth  in  the 

Domine,     puer  meus  jacet  in 

and  mid     yfle     gej^read. 

and  with    evil    afflicted. 

3.  hous  sike  on  the  palsie,    and|  is    yuel    toumientid. 

4.  hous  sijk  on  the  palesie,    and  is    yuel     turmentid. 

6.  domo        paralyticus,  et  male     torquetur. 


3.  And 

4.  And 


et 


huse 
house 


said, 
seide, 
dicens, 

lama, 
lame. 


Lect.  VTir.  WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS  349 

VII. 

1.  Da    cwset5    se  Ilaelend  to  him,  Ic     cume     and     hine     gehaele. 

2.  Then  said  the  Saviour  to  liim,    I      come     and     him       heal. 

3.  And  Jhesus     saith      to  hym,  I  shal  cume,  and  shal  hele  hym. 

4.  And  Jhesus     seide      to  him,  Y  schal  come, and  schal  heele  him. 
5.       Et  ait     illi      Jesus,      Ego  veniam,      et    curabo     eum. 

VIII. 

1.  Da     andswarode    se     hundredes    ealdor     and     ]>us     cwse^, 

2.  Then     answered     the     hundred's  captain    and    thus     said, 
8.  And        centurio        answerynge        saith        to        hym, 

4.  And  the  centurien     answeride,    and   seide   to   hym, 
5.     Et  respondens  centurio  ait, 

1.  Drihten,   ne      eom      ic      wyrt5e      ]>set      pu      ingange    under 

2.  Lord,  not      am        I  worthy  that  thou     in-go  under 

3.  Lord,  I      am      not  worthi,  that  thou     entre  vndir 

4.  Lord,  Y      am      not  worthi,  that  thou     entre  vndur 
5.  Domine,  non     sum  dignus,  ut          intres  sub 

1.  mine    fecene ;     ac      cwasS      ]>m      an     word,    and  min  cnapa 

2.  my       roof;  but    speak     thy     one     word,  and   my  knave 

3.  my       roof;  but    oonly     say        bi     word,  and   my    child 

4.  my       roof;  but  oonli  seie  thou  bi  word,  and  my  childe 
5.  tectum  meum ;  sed     tantum     die         verbo,       et 

1.  bi6     gehceled. 

2.  will-be  healed. 

3.  shall  be  helid. 

4.  shal  be  heelid. 

5.  sanabitur  puer  meus. 

IX. 

1.  SoSlice  ic  eom   man     under   anwealde   gesett,      and  ic 

2.  (For-)sooth      I  am  (a)  man  under   authority     set,         and  I 

3.  For  whi  and  I  am    a   man  ordeynd   vnder  power, 

4.  For  whi  Y  am   a   man  ordeyned  vndur  power, 
5.  Nam  et  ego  homo  sum  sub   potestate  constitutus, 

1.  hsebbe    ))egnas     under     me;      and  ic  cwajSe  to  j'ysum,   Gang, 

2.  have     soldiers    under     me;      and  I      say      to     this,         Go, 

3.  hauynge   vndir    me  kni^tis ;      and  I      say      to     this.         Go, 

4.  and  haue  knyjtis  vndir  me ;      and  Y     seie      to     this,         Go, 
5.  habens     sub     me     milites;        et     dico  huic :  Vade, 


350 


WTCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS 


Lect.  viir. 


1.  and 

2.  and 

3.  and 

4.  and 
5.    et 

1.  to 

2.  to 

3.  and 

4.  and 
5.     et 


he  g£eS  ;  and  ic  cwet5e  to 
lie  goetli ;  and  I 
he  goth  ;     and 
he  goith;      and 
vadit ;  et 


rum,     Cum,      and  he  cymS  ; 

say  to  (an-)other,  Come,    and  he  cometh 

to  an  other,  Come  thou,  and  he  cometh 


to 


another,  Come,     and  he  cometh 

alii,  Veni,       et         venit; 

]7eowe,         Wyrc  J>is,  and  he  wyrcS. 

servant,        Do  this,  and  he  doeth. 
to  my  seruaunt,  Do  thou  this  thing,  and  he  doth. 

to  my  seruaunt,  Do          this  and  he  doith  it. 

servo  meo,     Fac         hoc,  et         facit. 


my 


se       Hajlend  ])is  gehyrde,    pa   wundrode  he, 
then  wondered  he, 

wondride, 
and  wondride, 
miratus  est, 


the     Saviour  this  heard, 
heerynge   these   thingis, 
herde       these   thingis, 
autem    Jesus 


1.  Witodlice       )>a 

2.  Now         when 

3.  Sothely    Jhesus, 

4.  And       Jhesus 
5.  Audiens 

1.  and  cwseS  to  pam 

2.  and  said  to  them 

3.  and  saide  to  men 

4.  and  seide  to  men 
5.  et     sequentibus 

1.  gemette  ic  swa  mycelne  geleafan  on  Israhel. 

2.  met       I      so       much       belief      in  Israel. 

3.  I      fond     nat     so     grete     feith       in  Yrael. 

4.  Y  foond     not     so     greete   feith       in  Israel. 
5,     non     inveni         tantam       fidem     in  Israel. 

XI. 


pe    him  fyligdon : 
that  him  followed : 

suynge  hym : 
that  sueden  him : 
se     dixit : 


SoS  ic  secge   eow    ne 

Sooth  I   say(to)  you  not 

Trewly  I  saye  to  jou 

Treuli  I  seie  to  jou 

Amen  dico  vobis 


1. 

To    so6um     ic  secge     eow. 

Daet  manige    cumatJ 

fram 

2. 

In     sooth       I  say  (to)  you, 

That  many  (shall)  come 

from 

3. 

Sothely        Y  say   to    jou. 

that  manye  shulen  come 

fro 

4. 

And           Y  seie    to    jou. 

that  many  schulen  come 

fro 

5. 

Dico        autem         vobis. 

quod  multi    ab    Oriente 

et 

1.  east-dajle      and     west-dsele,     and    wuniatJ     mid     Abrahame 

2.  (the)  east-deal  and  (the)  west-deal,  and      dwell      with      Abraham 

3.  the  est  and        west,       and  shulen   rest  with  Abraham 
4.  the  eest            and  the  west,       and  schulen  reste  with  Abraham 

5.  Occidente           venient                    et  recumbent  cum  Abraham 


Lect.  VIIL  WTCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS  351 

1.  and  Isaace  and  Jacobe,  on         heofena         rice; 

2.  and  Isaac    and  Jacob  in         heavens'    realm ; 

3.  and  Ysaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kyngdam  of  heuenes; 
4:.  and  Ysaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kyngdom  of  heuenes ; 

5.     et    Isaac     et    Jacob       in  regno  coelorum ; 

XII. 

1.  Witodlice  J)ises  rices  beam  beoS    aworpene    on    Ipa    yte- 

2.  Verily  this  realm's  children  (shall)  be  out-cast  in(to)  the  outer- 

3.  forsothe  the  sonys  of  the  rewme  shulen    be  cast  out  into  vttre- 

4.  but      the  sones  of  the  rewme  schulen  be  cast  out  in  to  vtmer 
5.  filii     autem         regni  ejicientur  in  tenebras 

1.  mestan  J»ystro :    ))£er      biS  wop,    '    and      to])a  gristbitung. 

2.  most  darkness  :  there  (shall)  be  weeping,  and  (of)  teeth  grinding. 

3,  mest derknessis;  there  shal  be  weepynge, and  beetynge  togidreof  teeth. 

4.  derknessis ;     there  schal  be  wepyng,   and  grynting  of  teeth. 
5.    exteriores ;      ibi  erit        fletus      et     stridor    dentium. 

XIII. 

1.  And    se     Hgelend     cwasS  to  j^am  hundrydes  ealdre, 

2.  And  the    Saviour      said    to  the  hundred's    elder, 

3.  And      Jhesus  saide  to  centurio, 

4.  And      Jhesus  seide  to  the  centurioun, 
5.     Et              dixit     Jesus  centurioni, 

1.  Ga;  and  gewurSe    ]>e     swa  swa    ]>u    gelyfdest.  And  se 

2.  Go;  and  be  (it)  (to)  thee  so   as    thou  believedst.  And  the 

3.  Go  ;  and  as  thou  hast  bileeued  be  it  don  to  thee.  And  the 

4.  Go  ;  and  as  thou  hast  bileuyd  be  it  doon  to  thee.  And  the 
5.  Vade ;     et      sicut        credidisti             fiat         tibi.  Et 

1.  cnapa     wajs  geha^led  on  pasre  tide. 

2.  knave     w^as     healed  in  that  hour. 

3.  child      w^as      helid    fro  that  houre. 

4.  child      was     heelid  fro  that  hour. 
5.      sanatus  est  puer        in    ilia    hora. 

XIV. 

1.  Da      se       Hjslend  com    on        Petres        huse, 

2.  When  the    Saviour  came   in(to)  Peter's       house, 

3.  And  when  Jhesus  hadde  comen  in  to  the  hous  of  Symond    Petre, 

4.  And  whanne  Jhesus  was  comun  in  to  the  hous  of  Symount  Petre, 
5.    Et      cum     venisset      Jesus     in      domum  Petri, 


352  WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS  Lect.  VIII. 

1.  ])a     geseali    he  hys        swegre         licgende,    and 

2.  then     saw       he  his  mother-in-law    lying,       and 

3.  he      say         his   wyues  moder  liggynge,    and 

4.  he      say  his  wyues  modir  liggynge,    and 
5.           vidit  socrum  ejus    jacentem  et 

1.  hriSgende. 

2.  feverish. 

3.  shakun  with  feueris. 

4.  shakun  with  feueris. 
5.         febricitantem. 

XV. 

1.  And  he    a^thran     hyre     hand,  and  se     fefor     hig     fortlet : 

2.  And  he  touched     her       hand,  and  the    fever    her       left : 

3.  And  he  touchide    hir      hond,  and  the    feuer    lefte     hir : 

4.  And  he  touchide     hir     hoond,  and  the    feuer   lefte     hir : 
5.     Et         tetigit        manum  ejus,    et  dimisit    earn    febris : 

1.  Sa     aras  heo,  and   Jienode   him. 

2.  then  arose  she,  and    sei-ved  them. 

3.  and  she  roose,  and  seruyde  hem. 

4.  and  she  rocs,  and  seruede  hem. 
5.    et     surrexit,  et  ministrabat  eis. 

XVI. 

1.  SoSlice     ]>a    hyt     sefen     wees,  hig    brohton  him 

2.  Soothly  when  it    evening  was,  they  brought  (to)  him 

3.  Sothely  whan  the  euenyng  was  maad,  thei   brouT,te     to    hym 

4.  And     whanne     it     was     euen,         thei   brougten  to    hym 
5.         Vespere  autem  facto,  cbtulerimt         ei 

1.  manege         deofol-seoce :  and   he   ut-adrajde    pa 

2.  many  devil-sick :  and   he  out-drave    the 

3.  many        hauynge      deuelys :  and   he   castide   out 

4.  manye    that  hadden    deuelis :  and   he   castide   out 
5.  multos      dgemonia  habentes :  et  ejiciebat 

1.  unclasnan    gastas    mid    hys  worde,     and     he      ealle 

2.  unclean     ghosts   with  his    word,     and      he       all 

3.  spiritis    by  word,     and    helide  alle 

4.  spiritis     bi  word,     and  heelide  alle 
5,                        spiritus                verbo,      et  omnes 


Lect.  VIII. 


WYCLIFFITE    TRANSLATIONS 


353 


1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 
5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 
5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 

5. 


gehaelde     l^a     yfel-hffibbendan ; 
healed     the       evil-having ; 

hauynge  yuel; 
that  weren  yuel  at  ese ; 
male  habentes  curavit ; 

XVII. 

Dajt         WEere     gefylled      j  a?t  gecweden  is  purh       Esalam 
That     might-be  fulfilled     what       spoken  is  through  Esaias 
that  it  shulde  be  fulfillid,  that  thing  that  -was  said  by  Ysaie, 
that  it      were        fulfillid,  that  was  seid  by  Ysaie, 

ut     adimpleretur. 


pone    witegan,     ^us 


the      prophet,    thus 
the     prophete, 
the      profete, 
prophetam, 
nessa,     and     he 
and     he 
and 
and 
et 


quod  dictum  est       per  Isaiam 

cweSende,     He     onfeng    ure    untrum- 
took      our     infirm- 
toke     oure  infirmy- 
took     oure   infirmy- 
infirmitates    nostras 


ities, 

tees, 

tees, 

accepit. 


saymg, 

sayinge, 

seiynge, 

dicentem, 

abajr     ure 
bare     our 


He 
He 
He 

Ipse 

adla. 
ails. 


bere    oure  sykenessis. 
bar    oure     siknessis. 
ffigrotationes  nostras  portavit. 

XVIII. 

Da  geseah  se      Hselend       mycle      menigeo 
When   saw   the     Saviour       much       people 


ymbutan 
about 


say 
Jesus 

hi<r 


Sothely     Jhesus 
And        Jhesus 
Videns      autem 

hyne,     ])a        het     he 
him,     then    bade    he    them 
hym,         bad  his   disciplis 
him,  and  bade  hise  disciplis 
se,  jussit 


seeynge     many    cumpanyes    about 


myche       puple       aboute 
turbas     multas       circum 

faran      ofer    }?one  muSan. 

(to)  fare  over     the  water, 

go    ouer     the  water, 

go    ouer     the  watir. 
ire  trans    fretum. 


XIX. 

Da       geneal^ehte      him         an  bocere,  and        cwce'5, 

Then       nighed     (to)  him        a  scribe,  and         said, 

And  00  scribe,  or  a  man  of  lawe,  commynge  to,  saide  to  hym, 

And   a    scribe  neijede,  and  seide  to  hym, 

Et  accedens       unus  scriba  ait         illi, 

A  A 


54 

WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS                      Lect.  VIII. 

1.  Lareow, 

ic 

iylige 

fe 

swa       hwaeder        swa      ])u 

2.  Teacher, 

I 

follow 

thee 

whither-so-ever 

thou 

3.  Maistre, 

I 

shal  sue 

thee 

whidir           euer 

thou 

4.  Maistir, 

Y 

shal  sue 

thee 

whidir           euer 

thou 

5.  Magister, 

sequar 

te 

quocumque 

1.     fajrst. 

2.    farest. 

3.  shalt  go. 

4.  schalt  go. 

5.     ieris. 

XX. 

1.     Da      cwaetS 

se        Haelend 

to 

him,       Foxas 

habbatJ 

2.  Then      said 

the      Saviour 

to 

him.       Foxes 

have 

3.  And 

Jhesus   said 

to 

hym,      Foxis 

han 

4.  And 

Jhesus  seide 

to 

hym,      Foxis 

han 

5.    Et 

dicit 

ei 

Jesus,         Vulpes 

foveas 

1.  holu,       and 

heofenan 

fuglas 

nest ;    sot51ice  mannes  sunu 

2.  holes,      and 

heavens' 

fowls 

nests ;   soothly   man's    son 

3.  dichis,  or  Jorotyi5,  and  briddis  of  the  eir/mnnestis;  but  mannes  sone 

4.  dennes  andbriddisofheueneAaw  nestis;  but  mannus  sone 
5.  habent,  et  volucres  coeli         nidos ;  filiusautemhominis 

1.  naefS     hw£er       he       hys       heafod       ahylde. 

2.  has-not  where      he       his         head        may-lay. 
he    reste   his    heued. 

he  schal    reste   his    heed, 
caput       reclinet. 


3.  hath  nat  wher 

4.  hath  not  where 
5.  non  habet    ubi 


Da 

Then 


said 


XXI. 

him      o])er      of 
him  (an)otherof 


hys 
his 


3.  Sotheli   an    other    of  his   disciplis    saide    to 

4.  Anothir  of  his    disciplis    seide    to 
5. 


Anothir 
Alius    autem 


of  his    disciplis    seide 
de  discipulis  ejus  ait 

1.  Drihten,      alyfe    me       serest      to      farenne 

2.  Lord,  let      me        first  fare 

3.  Lord,  suffre  me     go  first 

4.  Lord,  suffre  me  to  go  first 
5.  Domine,  permitte  me  primum  ire 


leorning-cnihtum, 

disciples, 
hym, 
him, 
iUi, 

and  bebyrigean 

and  bury 

and  birye 

and  birie 

et  sepeHre 


Lect.  VIII. 


WrCLIFFITE    TRANSLATIONS 


355 


1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 


1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 

5. 

1. 
2. 

3, 

4. 
5. 


minne     feeder. 

my       father. 

my        fadir. 

my        fader, 
patrem    meum. 

XXII. 

Da  cwa25     se     Haelend  to    liim,     Fylig     me,  and 

Then  said     the    Saviour  to    him,    Follow    me,  and 

Forsothe    Jhesus    saide  to  hym.  Sue  thou  me,  and 

But           Jhesus     seide  to  hym.  Sue  thou  me,  and 

Jesus  autem          ait          illi,        Sequere  me  et 

deade      bebyrigan  hyra    deadan. 
(the)  dead     bury       their      dead, 
dede  men     birye         her  dead  men. 
deed  men      birie         her  deede  men. 
mortuos     sepelire        mortuos  sues. 

XXIII. 


l£Et 

let 

late 

lete 

dimitte 


1.  And      he      astah         on  scyp         and  hys  leorning-cnyhtas 

2.  And      he     entered     in(to)    (a)  ship      and    his         disciples 

3.  And  Jhesu  steyinge         vp  in  to  a  litel  ship,  his         disciplis 

4.  And  whanne  he  was  goon  vp  in  to  a  litil  schip,  his         disciplis 

5.    Et        ascendente   eo  in       naviculam,         secuti  sunt  eum 

1.  hym  fyligdon. 

2.  him  followed. 

3.  sueden  him. 

4.  sueden  hym. 
5.  discipuli  ejus. 

XXIV. 

1.  Da  wearS     my  eel  styrung    geworden    on 

2.  Then  was  (a)  great      stir  in 

3.  And   loo !  a  grete    steryng  was  made  in 

4.  And    loo !  a  greet     stiring  was  maad  in 
5.     Et     ecce !     motus  magnus  factus  est  in 

1.  f      scyp      wearS    ofergoten    mid    ySum ; 

2.  the     ship  was  over-poured  with   waves; 

3.  the  litil  ship  was         hilid        with    wawis; 

4.  the    schip  was         hilid        with  wawes; 
5.     navicula  operiretur             fluctibus; 

A  A  2 


J)£ere  s^,  swa     f 

the  sea,  so     that 

the  see,  so     that 

the  see,  so     that 

mari,  ita      ut 

witodlice  he    slep. 
verily     he    slept. 

but       he  slepte. 

but       he  slepte. 
ipse  vero  dormiebat. 


356 


WTCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS 


Lect.  VI I L 


1. 
2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 


1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 

5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 


XXV. 

And         hig  geneal^hton,     and  hy  awehton  hyne, 

And        they  nighed,         and  they  aAvaked    him, 

And  his  disciplis  camen  nij  to  hym,     and      raysiden  hym, 
Andhisediscipliscamen        to  hym,    and      reysiden  hym, 

Et  accesserunt  ad  eum  discipuli  ejus,  et    suscitaverunt  eum, 
cweSende,  Drihten,  hcele  ns :  we  moton  forwurSan. 

saying,        Lord,       save  us:  we   must     perish. 


]>us 
thus 


we         perishen. 

we         perischen. 

perimus. 


sayinge.       Lord,       saue  vs: 
and  seiden.  Lord,       saue  vs  : 
dicentes,  Domine,    salva  nos: 

XXVI. 

Da    cwasS    he    to    him.    To    hwi  syntge    forhte,  ge    lytles 
Then   said     he    to   them.  For  why  are  ye  affrighted  ye(of)little 
And  Jhesus  seith  to   hem,  What  ben  jee  of  litil  feitli  agast  ? 
And  Jhesus  seide  to   hem,  What  ben  ge  of  litil  feith  agaste  ? 
Et     dicit     eis     Jesus,    Quid  timidi  estis,  modicss  fidei? 
geleafan.        Da      aras  he    "and  bebead    pam    winde  and  J)£ere 
faith?        Then  arose  he      and   bade       the     wind    and   the 
Thanne  he  rysynge  comaundide  to  the  wyndis  and  the 
Thanneheroosandcomaundidetothe  wyndis  and  the 
Tunc      surgens      imperavit  ventis  et 

sse,     and     ]?aer    wearS    geworden      mycel    smyltness. 
and  there     was  (a)  great        calm, 

and    a    grete    pesiblenesse     is    maad. 
and    a    greet    pesibilnesse  was  maad. 
mari,  et      facta    est     tranquillitas     magna. 


sea, 
see, 
see. 


men 
men 


XXVII. 

wundrodun, 
wondered, 
wondreden, 
wondriden, 
homines  mirati  sunt, 
J»es  f      windas 

this  that    winds 

manere  mail  is  he  this,  for  the  wyndis 
maner  man  is  he  this,  for  the  wyndis 
est  hie,  quia     venti 


Gewisslice    fa   men 

Verily      then  men 

Forsothe 

And 

Porro 

is 

is 


and  ]ms  cwaedon:    Hwa^t 

and  thus     spake:      What 

sayinge :  What 

and  seiden:  What 

dicentes :  Qualis 

and      s£e       him  hyrsumiaS. 

and     sea      him       obey? 

and  the  see  obeishen  to  hym. 

and  the  see  obeischen  to  him. 

et    mare  obediunt      ei? 


Lect.  VIII. 


WYCLIFFITE    TEANSLATIONS 


357 


1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 
2. 

1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 

1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 
5. 

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

5. 


XXVIII. 

Da       se      Hcelend  com  ofer|)onemuSan  on        Geraseniscra 

"When    the    Saviour  came  over  the  water  in(to)  (the)  Gergesenes 

And    whan    Jhesus  hadde  comen  ouer  the  water  in  to  the  cuntre 

And  whanne  Jhesus    was   comun  ouer  the  watir  in  to  the  cuntre 

Et      cum  venisset     trans  fretum   in   regionem 

rice,       ]>a      urnon      him      togenes      twegen      J)e      haefdon 
country  there      ran        him      towards       twain      that       had 
of  men    of  Genazereth    twey  men   hauynge    deuelis     runnen 
of  men   of       Gerasa      twey  men    metten  hym     that   hudden 
Gerasenorum,  occurrerunt  ei  duo  habentes 

deofol-seocnesse,      of     byrgenum      litgangende, 

from  (the)  tombs      out-going, 

goynge  out  fro  birielis, 

and  camen  out  of  graues, 

de  monumentis  exeuntes, 

swa     f     nan     man  ne  mihte  faran 

so    that    no      man  might   fare 

that    no      man  mijte  passe 

that   noo     man  my^te    go 

ut        nemo  posset      transire 


devil-sickness, 

to  hym, 

deuelis, 

dgemonia, 

swit5e      reSe, 

very      fierce, 
ful  feerse,  or  ivickid,  so 
fulwoode,  so 

saevi  nimis,  ita 


J>a 
that 


wajron 
were 


furh 
through 

by 
bi 

per 


fone 
that 
that 
that 
viam 


weg. 

way. 

wey. 

weie. 

illam. 


XXIX. 


1.  And      hig      hrymdon,     and    cwaedon, 

2.  And     they        cried,  and       said, 

3.  And  loo!  thei  crieden,       sayinge, 

4.  And   lo !    thei  crieden,    and     seiden, 

5.  Et  ecce !       clamaverunt  dicentes, 


La     Haelend  Godes 

O      Saviour  God's 

What   to   vs  and 

What    to   vs  and 

Quid  nobis  et 

1.  sunu,    hw£et  ys       ]?e    and    us    gemsene?      come    pu    hider 

2.  son,     what    is(to)theeand    us    common?    comest thou  hither 

3.  to  thee,     Jhesu     the     sone     of    God  ?  hast  thou  comen 

4.  to  thee,     Jhesu     the     sone     of    God  ?  art  thou  comun 
5.      tibi,        Jesu,             fili     Dei?  Venisti  hue 


358 


WYCLIFFITE   TRANSLATIONS 


Lect.  VIII. 


1.  8Dr        tide        us     to     ]>reagenne? 

2.  ere  (the)  time      us     to       torment? 

3.  hidir  before  the  tyme  for  to  tourmente  vs  ? 

4.  hidir  bifore  the  tyme        to  turmente  vs  ? 

5.  ante     tempus  torquere    nos? 


XXX. 

Deer       wacs      so81ice       unfeorr   an  swyna         heord 

There       was'      verily         unfar      an    (of)    swine        herd 

Sothely    a  iioc,  or  droue,     of  many  hoggis  lesewynge 

And     not     fer     fro     hem    was     a     flocke    of    many    swyne 

Erat    autem    non    longe    ab    illis     grex  multorum  porcorum 

manegra    manna,  lajswiende. 
(of)  many    men,       feeding, 
was  nat  fer  from  hem. 

lesewynge. 


pascens. 
XXXI. 


Da       deofla 

The      devils 

But  the  deuelis 

And  the  deuelis 

Daemones  autem 


Gyf 
If 

If 

Si 


soSlice    hyne  btedon,    f us    cweSende, 

verily     him  begged,  thus      saying, 
preyeden  him,      seyinge, 

preyeden  hym,    and  seiden, 

rogabant  eum,      dicentes, 

])u       us       ut-adrifst,        asendeus     on      J)as     swine  heorde. 

thou      us      out-drivest,         send  us  in(to)  this  (of)  swine  herd. 

thou  castist  out  vs        hennes,  sende  vs  in  to  the  droue  of  hoggis. 

thou  castist  out  vs  fro  hennes,  sende  vs  in  to  the  droue  of  swyne. 

ejicis  nos     hinc,       mittenosin         gregem  porcorum. 


XXXII. 

1.  Da     cwaeS    he    to    him,  FaraS. 

2.  Then     said     he    to   them.  Fare. 

3.  And     he     saith    to    hem.  Go  jee. 

4.  And     he     seide   to    hem,  Go  je. 

5.  Et             ait             illis,  Ite. 

1.  utgangende    ferdon       on  J^a         swin  ; 

2.  out-going       fared      in(to)  the      swine  ; 

3.  out                   wente     in  to  the     hoggis  ; 

4.  out         and  wenten    in  to  the     swyne  ; 

5.  abierunt         in  porcos ; 


And     hig 

fa 

And   they 

then 

And    thei 

goynge 

And    thei 

jeden 

At       illi 

exeuntes 

and 

]7ajrrihte 

and 

forthwith 

and  loo ! 

in   a 

and  loo ! 

!     in  a 

et  ecce 1 

I 

Lect.  VIII. 


WTCLIFFITE    TRANSLATIONS 


359 


1.  ferde    eall    seo    heord     myclum     onrasse 

2.  fared    all     the     herd  (with)  a  great  rush 

3.  greet  hire  al  the  droue  wente  heedlynge 

4.  greet  bire  al  the  drone  wente  heedlyng 
5.     impetu        abiit  totus  grex  per  prajceps 


niwel     on     J^a     s^, 
down  in(to)  the  sea, 
in  to     the        see, 
in  to     the        see, 
in  mare, 


1.  and   hig   wurdon  deade 

2.  and  they     were  dead 

3.  and  thei      ben  dead 

4.  and  thei    weren  deed 

5.  et 


mortui     sunt 


on 
in 
in 
in 
in 


fam   wastere. 
the     water. 

watris. 

the  watris. 

aquis. 


XXXIII. 


1.  Da     hyrdas    witodlice      flugon,       and       comun         on  'pa 

2.  The  herdsmen    verily  fled,  and        came  in(to)  the 

3.  Forsothe   the    hirdes   fledden  awey,  and  cummynge  in  to  the 

4.  And            the   hirdis    fledden  awey,  and        camen  in  to  the 
5.       Pastores  autem            fugerunt,       et  venientes  in 

1.  ceastre,      and     cyddon         ealle     ])as       ]>ing;  and    be     j^am 

2.  city,         and  (made)  known    all     these    things;  and  about  them 

3.  citee,  tolden  alle    these  thingis;  and     of     hem 

4.  citee         and   telden  alle   these  thingis;  and     of     hem 

5.  civitatem       nuntiaverunt  omnia ;  et      de       iis 

1.  ])e    ])a  deoful-seocnyssa  hsefdon. 

2.  that  the    devil-sickness       had. 

3.  that   hadden   the    fendis. 

4.  that  hadden   the  feendis. 

5.  qui      daemonia  habuerant. 

XXXIV. 

1.  Da    eode    eall    seo     ceaster-waru     togeanes     J)am     Hselende, 

2.  Then  went    all     the        citizens  towards      the      Saviour, 

3.  And  loo !       al     the  citee  wente    a^einis        Jhesu, 

4.  And  lo  I        al     the  citee         wente  out  ajens         Jhesu, 

5.  Et  ecce !    tota         ci vitas  exiit     obviam        Jesu, 

1.  and     pa.       pa,     hig     hyne     gesawun,     ^a     baedon     hig  hyne 

2.  and  when  that  they     him         saw,  then    bade     they  him 

3.  metynge       hym;     and     hym      seen,       thei     preiden  hi/m, 

4.  and  whanne  thei  hadden  seyn  hym,  thei    preieden 

5.  et  viso  eo  rogabant 


360  Hereford's  translation  Lect.  viii. 

1.  f     he         ferde         fram     heora    gemaenim. 

2.  that  he  (would)  fare  from  their  borders. 
8.  that  he  shulde  pass  fro  her  coostis. 
4.  that  he     wolde  passe  fro       her         coostis. 

5.    Tit  transiret  a         finibus  eorum. 

The  earlier  Wycliffite  text  of  the  first  part  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, or  that  ascribed  to  Hereford,  is  remarkable  both  for  the 
resuscitation  of  obsolete  Anglo-Saxon  forms,  and  for  the  intro- 
duction of  Latinisms  resulting  from  an  attempt  at  a  literal  close- 
ness of  rendering.* 

Both  these  circumstances  give  some  countenance  to  the  sup- 
position, that  Hereford's  work  is  only  a  recension  of  an  English 
prose  translation  belonging  to  a  considerably  earlier  philological 
period ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  existence  of 
any  such,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  Hereford's  vocabulary 
and  accidence  were  influenced  by  a  familiarity  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  version  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  parts  of  the  Old. 

Among  the  Saxonisms,  I  may  mention  the  use  of  the  gerun- 
dial  instead  of  the  passive.  The  Saxon  gerundial  ended  in 
enne,  and  was  used  with  the  prefix  to,  like  our  modern  infinitive. 
Thus,  he  is  to  lufigenne  signified,  both,  he  is  about  to  love,  and, 
more  frequently,  he  is  to  be  loved.  This  form  Hereford  employs, 
substituting  the  termination  iiige  for  enne,  as,  al  that  is  to  iver- 
chynge,  meaning,  all  that  is  to  be  wrought ;  the  kid  is  to  seeth- 
inge,  the  kid  is  to  be  sodden,  or  boiled. 

He  omits  the  possessive  sign  in  s,  saying  dow^tir  husbonde, 
unkil  dowjfir,  husbonde  fadir,  for  daughter's  husband,  uncle's 
daughter,  husband's  father.f 

He  uses  the  verb  be  as  a  future,  as,  they  ben  to  seyn,  for,  they 
will  say. 

*  In  Lecture  V.,  I  accompanied  tlie  102nd  Psalm,  from  the  Surtees  Psalter,  -with 
Hereford's  translation.  I  add  to  this  lecture.  Longer  Notes  and  Illustrations,  II., 
Purvey's  translation  of  the  same  psalm,  for  the  sake  of  comparison. 

t  Examples  of  this  omission  of  the  modern  possessive  sign  are  found  in  writers 
of  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century. 


Lect.  VIII.  WYCLIFFE   AND   PURVEY  361 

He  employs  oure  and  youre  as  genitives  plural,  not  as  pos- 
sessive pronouns,  as,  oure  dreed,  the  dread  of  us ;  youre  feer, 
the  fear  of  you. 

He  uses  the  Anglo-Saxon  feminine  ending  in  ster,  as  daun- 
ster,  a  female  dancer,  sleester  or  slayster,  a  murderess,  syngster, 
a  songstress. 

But  the  most  remarkable  peculiarities  of  his  style  are  the 
Latinisms. 

Thus  he  renders  the  ablative  absolute  literally,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  viso  somnio  of  the  vulgate,  not,  as  at  present, 
'  a  vision  having  been  seen,'  or  '  having  seen  a  vision,'  but 
directly,  a  seen  sweven*  The  Latin  impersonal  videbatur,  it 
seemed,  he  renders  it  was  seen,  and  he  constantly  uses  the 
accusative  before  the  infinitive.  Thus,  instead  of 'I  dreamed 
that  we  were  binding  sheaves^''  he  has  ^  I  dreamed  us  to  binden 
sheaves ; '  but  this,  though  most  probably  a  mere  transference  of 
a  Latin  form,  is  possibly  a  native  idiom,  for  it  is  of  frequent 
occurrence  in  Icelandic. 

In  Wyclifife's  and  Purvey's  texts,  these  un-English  expres- 
sions disappear,  and  are  superseded  by  more  modern  etymolo- 
gical and  syntactical  forms.  The  feminine  ending  ster,  for 
example,  is  superseded  by  the  French  esse ;  and  this  ending  is 
employed  much  more  freely  than  at  present,  and  is  applied 
indiscriminately  to  Saxon  and  Romance  roots.  Thus  we  have 
daunseresse,  disciplesse,  dwelleresse,  devouresse,  servauntesse, 
sleeresse,  thrallesse,  waileresse,  and  the  like. 

The  syntax  of  these  latter  translators  is  by  no  means  free 
from  either  Latin  or  French  constructions,  but  it  is,  neverthe- 
less, much  more  idiomatic  than  that  of  Hereford.  The  gram- 
matical change,  by  which  the  active  or  present  participle  in 
-ende  assumed  the  form  of  the  verbal  noun  in  -ing,  and  which 
I  have  discussed  in  my  First  Series,  Lecture  XXIX.,  became 

*  This  Latinism,  it  will  have  been  seen,  occurs  also  in  WyclifFe,  though  rarely. 
Thus,  in  the  34th  verse  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  Matthew,  already  given,  the  et 
viso  eo  of  the  vulgate  is  rendered  and  hym  seen,  without  any  regimen,  the  phrase 
being  taken  absolutely,  as  in  Latin. 


362  WYCLIFFE  AND   PURVEY  Lect.  VIIL 

established  while  these  translations  were  in  process  of  execution. 
The  distinction  between  the  participle  and  the  noun  was  kept 
up  with  considerable  regularity  until  towards  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  when  it  was  lost  sight  of;  the  participial 
termination  in  'Cind  or  -end  became  obsolete,  and  both  participle 
and  verbal  noun  took  the  common  ending  -ing.  The  former 
translator  of  the  Apocrypha,  the  Psalms,  Proverbs,  and  the 
Prophets,  used  the  two  forms,  and,  with  few  exceptions,  accu- 
rately discriminated  between  them ;  but  when  Wyclifife  took  up 
the  continuation  of  Hereford's  work,  the  participle  in  -end  had 
gone  so  much  out  of  use  that  he  dropped  it  altogether,  and 
employed  the  termination  -ing  only,  for  both  participle  and 
noun.  Hence,  in  Baruch  iii.  18,  which  belongs  to  Hereford, 
we  find,  ^  there  is  noon  ende  of  the  'purchasing  of  hem,'  jpiir- 
chasing  being  a  verbal  noun ;  but  as,  in  his  translation,  the 
true  participle  almost  always  ends  in  -end  or  -ende,  we  have, 
Baruch  iii.  11,  ^Thou  art  set  with  men  goende  down  to  helle.' 
On  the  other  hand,  in  verse  25  of  the  same  chapter,  in 
Wy cliff e's  continuation,  'greet  and  not  hauynge  eende  '  occurs, 
though  hauynge  is  a  true  participle ;  and  this  form  is  always 
used  afterwards. 

Purvey's  text  of  the  New  Testament  is  evidently  founded  on 
Wycliffe's  translation,  as  his  Old  Testament  probably  is  on  that 
of  Hereford.  Purvey  had  thought  much  on  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  translation,  and  especially  on  the  rules  to  be  adopted 
in  rendering  Latin  into  a  language  of  so  diverse  a  grammatical 
structure  as  English.  The  prologue  to  his  recension,  which  fills 
sixty  large  quarto  pages  in  Madden  and  Forshall's  edition  of 
the  Wycliffite  versions,  is  extremely  interesting.  I  insert;  from 
the  concluding  part  of  it,  a  couple  of  extracts  which  will  give 
the  reader  some  idea  both  of  his  style  and  of  his  theory  of 
translation. 

For  these  resons  and  othere,  with  comune  charite  to  saue  alle 
men  in  cure  rewme,  whiche  God  wole  haue  sauid,  a  symple  creature 
hath  translatid  the  bible  out  of  Latyn  into  English.     First,  this  symple 


Lect.  VUI.  purvey  on  TRANSLATION  363 

creature  hadde  myche  trauaile,  with  diuerse  felawis  and  helperis,  to 
gedere  manie  elde  biblis,  and  otliere  doctouris,  and  comune  glosis,  and 
to  make  oo  Latyn  bible  sumdel  trewe ;  and  thanne  to  studie  it  of  the 
newe,  the  text  with  the  glose,  and  othere  doctouris,  as  he  mijte  gete, 
and  speciali  Lire  on  the  elde  testament,  that  helpide  ful  mjche  in  this 
werk ;  the  thridde  tyme  to  counseile  with  elde  gramariens,  and  elde 
dyuynis,  of  harde  wordis,  and  harde  sentencis,  hou  tho  mijten  best  be 
vndurstonden  and  translatid ;  the  iiij .  tyme  to  translate  as  cleerli  as  he 
coude  to  the  sentence,  and  to  haue  manie  gode  felawis  and  kunnynge  at 
the  correcting  of  the  translacioun.  First  it  is  to  knowe,  that  the  best 
translating  is  out  of  Latyn  into  English,  to  translate  aftir  the  sentence, 
and  not  oneli  aftir  the  wordis,  so  that  the  sentence  be  as  opin,  either 
openere,  in  English  as  in  Latyn,  and  go  not  fer  fro  the  lettre  ;  and  if 
the  lettre  mai  not  be  suid  in  the  translating,  let  the  sentence  euere  be 
hool  and  open,  for  the  wordis  owen  to  serue  to  the  entent  and  sentence, 
and  ellis  the  wordis  ben  supei-flu  either  false.  In  translating  into 
English,  manie  resolucions  moun  make  the  sentence  open,  as  an  ablatif 
case  absolute  may  be  resoluid  into  these,  thre  wordis  with  couenable 
verbe,  the  while,  for^  if^  as  gramariens  seyn;  as  thus,  the  maistir 
redinge,  I  stonde,  mai  be  resoluid  thus,  while  the  maistir  redith,  I 
stonde,  either  if  the  maistir  redith,  etc.  either /or  the  maistir,  etc. ;  and 
sumtyme  it  wolde  acorde  wel  with  the  sentence  to  be  resoluid  into 
whanne,  either  into  ajlirward,  thus,  whanne  the  maistir  red,  I  stood, 
either  aftir  the  maistir  red,  I  stood;  and  sumtyme  it  mai  wel  be 
resoluid  into  a  verbe  of  the  same  tens,  as  othere  ben  in  the  same 
resoun,  and  into  this  word  et,  that  is,  and  in  English,  as  thus,  arescen- 
tihus  hominihus  pra3  timore,  that  is,  and  men  shulen  wexe  drie  for  drede. 
Also  a  participle  of  a  present  tens,  either  preterit,  of  actif  vols,  eithir 
passif,  may  be  resoluid  into  a  verbe  of  the  same  tens,  and  a  coniunc- 
cioun  copulatif,  as  thus,  dicens,  that  is,  seiynge,  mai  be  resoluid  thus, 
and  seith  eithir  that  seith  ;  and  this  wole,  in  manie  placis,  make  the 
sentence  open,  where  to  Englisshe  it  aftir  the  word,  wolde  be  derk  and 
douteful.  Also  a  relatif,  which  mai  be  resoluid  into  his  antecedent 
with  a  coniunccioun  copulatif,  as  thus,  which  renneth,  and  he  renneth. 
Also  whanne  oo  word  is  oonis  set  in  a  reesoun,  it  mai  be  set  forth  as 
ofte  as  it  is  vndurstonden,  either  as  ofte  as  reesoun  and  nede  axen ;  and 
this  word  autem,  either  vero,  mai  stonde  for  forsothe,  either  for  hut,  and 
thus  I  vse  comounli ;  and  sumtyme  it  mai  stonde  for  and,  as  elde 
gramariens  seyn.  Also  whanne  rijtful  construccioun  is  lettid  bi  rela- 
cion,  I  resolue  it  openli,  thus,  where  this  reesoun,  Domimmi  formida- 
hunt  adversarij  ejus,  shulde  be  Englisshid  thus  bi  the  lettre,  the  Lord 


364 


PURVEY   ON   TRANSLATION 


Lect.  VIII. 


Jiise  aduersaries  shnlen  drede,  I  Englishe  it  thus  bi  rcsolucioun,  the 
aduersaries  of  the  Lord  shulen  drede  him  ;  and  so  of  otliere  resons  that 
ben  like. 

Sithen  at  the  bigynnyng  of  feith  so  manie  men  translatiden  into 
Latyn,  and  to  greet  profyt  of  Latyn  men,  lat  oo  symple  creature  of  God 
translate  into  English,  for  profyt  of  English  men ;  for  if  worldli  clerkis 
loken  wel  here  croniclis  and  bokis,  thei  shulden  fynde,  that  Bede  trans- 
latide  the  bible,  and  expounide  myche  in  Saxon,  that  was  English, 
either  comoun  langage  of  this  lond,  in  his  tyme  ;  and  not  oneli  Bede, 
but  also  king  Alurcd,  that  foundide  Oxenford,  translatide  in  hise  laste 
dales  the  bigynning  of  the  Sauter  into  Saxon,  and  wolde  more  if  he 
hadde  lyued  lengere.  Also  Frenshe  men,  Beemers  and  Britons  han  the 
bible,  and  othere  bokis  of  deuocioun  and  of  exposicioun,  translatid  in 
here  modir  langage ;  whi  shulden  not  English  men  haue  the  same  in 
here  modir  langage,  I  can  not  wite,  no  but  for  falsnesse  and  necgligence 
of  clerkis,  either  for  oure  puple  is  not  worthi  to  haue  so  greet  grace  and 
jt;ifle  of  God,  in  peyne  of  here  olde  synnes.  God  for  his  merci  amende 
these  euele  causis,  and  make  oure  puple  to  haue,  and  kunne,  and  kepe 
truli  holi  writ,  to  lijf  and  deth!  But  in  translating  of  wordis  equiuok, 
that  is,  that  hath  manie  significacions  vndur  oo  lettre,  mai  lijtli  bo 
pereil,  for  Austyn  seith  in  the  ij.  book  of  Cristene  Teching,  that  if 
equiuok  wordis  be  not  translatid  into  the  sense,  either  vndurstonding, 
of  the  autour,  it  is  errour ;  as  in  that  place  of  the  Salme,  the  jeet  of 
hem  hen  swifte  to  shede  out  blood,  the  Greek  word  is  equiuok  to  sharp 
and  siviftf  and  he  that  translatide  sharpe  feet,  erride,  and  a  book  that 
hath  sharpe  feet,  is  fals,  and  mut  be  amendid ;  as  that  sentence 
vnhjnde  y)nge  trees  shulen  not  ifiue  deep  rootis,  owitli  to  be  thus, 
plauntingis  of  anoutrie  shulen  not  yiue  depe  rootis.  Austyn  seith  this 
there.  Therfore  a  translatour  hath  greet  nede  to  studie  wel  the  sentence, 
both  bifore  and  aftir,  and  loke  that  suche  equiuok  wordis  acorde  with 
the  sentence,  and  he  hath  nede  to  lyue  a  clone  lif,  and  be  ful  deuout  in 
preiers,  and  haue  not  his  wit  ocupied  about  worldli  thingis,  that  the 
Holi  Spiryt,  autour  of  wisdom,  and  kunnyng,  and  truthe,  dresse  him 
in  his  werk,  and  sufTre  him  not  for  to  erre.  Also  this  word  ex  signifieth 
sumtyme  of,  and  sumtyme  it  signifieth  hi,  as  Jerom  seith;  and  this 
word  enim  signifieth  corayiili  forsothe,  and,  as  Jerom  seith,  it  signifieth 
cause  thus,  forwhi ;  and  this  word  secundum  is  taken  for  aftir,  as  manie 
men  seyn,  and  comynli,  but  it  signifieth  wel  bi,  eithir  vp,  thus  bi  ^oure 
word,  either  vp  y}ure  ivord.  Manie  such  aduerbis,  coniuncciouns,  and 
preposiciouns  ben  set  ofte  oon  for  a  nother,  and  at  fre  chois  of  autouris 


hvCT.  VIII.  THE   SACRED   DIALECT  365 

sumtyme ;  and  now  tho  shulen  be  taken  as  it  acordith  best  to  the  sen- 
tence. Bi  this  maner,  with  good  lynyng  and  greet  trauel,  men  moun 
come  to  trewe  and  cleer  translating,  and  trewe  vndurstonding  of  holi 
writ,  seme  it  neuere  so  hard  at  the  bigynning.  God  graunte  to  us  alle 
grace  to  kunne  wel,  and  kepe  wel  holi  writ,  and  suiFre  ioiefulli  sum 
peyne  for  it  at  the  laste  !     Amen. 

One  of  the  most  important  efifects  produced  by  the  Wyclifl&te 
versions  on  the  English  language  is,  as  I  have  intimated,  the 
establishment  of  what  is  called  the  sacred  or  religious  dialect, 
which  was  first  fixed  in  those  versions,  and  has,  with  little 
variation,  continued  to  be  the  language  of  devotion  and  of 
scriptural  translation  to  the  present  day. 

This  is  most  obvious  in  the  verbal  forms.  Chaucer,  and 
other  secular  writers  contemporary  with  WyclifFe,  very  generally 
use  the  Anglo-Saxon  th  as  the  ending  of  the  .third  person 
singular  present  indicative  of  the  verb,  and  frequently,  though 
not  constantly,  in  all  the  persons  of  the  plural  and  in  the  im- 
perative, and  they  also  very  often  employ  the  plural  pronoun 
you,  in  addressing  a  single  person.  WyclifFe  constantly,  I 
believe,  confines  the  th  to  the  singular  verb,  and  never  employs 
it  for  the  imperative ;  he  makes  the  plural  ending  in  en ;  and 
never  employs  ye  or  you  in  the  singular  number.*  All  this  is 
modern  usage,  except  that  en  as  the  plural  sign  of  the  verb  has 
been  dropped.  In  short,  the  conjugation  of  Wyclifife's  verbs 
corresponds  in  all  points  very  nearly  to  our  own,  with  this  dif- 
ference, that  in  modern  times  the  strong  verbs  are  constantly 
inclining  more  and  more  to  the  weak  conjugation.! 

It  is  curious,  that  the  language  of  the  original  works  ascribed 
to  Wycliflfe  is  much  less  uniform  and  systematic  than  that  of 


*  Hereford's  general  use  of  the  verb  and  pronoun  is  the  same  as  WycHiFe's,  but 
he  makes  the  imperative  plural  in  th.  Thus,  in  Baruch  ii.  21 — the  last  passage 
of  Hereford's  translation,  in  which  the  imperative  plural  occurs  — we  find  :  Thus 
seith  the  Lord,  Bowith  doun  youre  shuldris,  where  Purvey  has :  Bowe  ye  youre 
schuldur.  In  Wycliife's  continuation,  the  first  imp.  pi.  is  in  Baruch  iv.  9,  and  the 
th  is  dropped:  zee  m%  coostis  of  Syon,  heere! 

t  See  Illustration  III.,  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


366  "wtcliffe's  commentary  Lect.  viir. 

his  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  the  grammar  of  which, 
instead  of  varying  and  fluctuating  according  to  the  confused 
usage  of  most  authors  of  that  time,  appears  to  conform  to  a 
standard  deliberately  adopted  and  very  regularly  followed. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  identifying  any  extant 
manuscript  as,  certainly,  the  work  of  Wycliffe,  hut  there  are 
several  which  are  ascribed  to  him  with  every  appearance  of 
probability.  The  following  extracts  are  taken  from  the  pro- 
logue to  Luke,  in  a  commentary  upon  the  Gospels,  believed  to 
have  been  composed  by  him.  I  print  them  from  the  preface 
to  Madden  and  Forshall's  edition  of  the  *  Wycliffite  Versions,' 
p.  ix. 

Herfore  [a  pore]  caityf,  lettid  fro  prechyng  for  a  tyme  for  Causes 
knowun  of  God,  writith  the  gospel  of  Luk  in  Englysh,  with  a  short 
exposicioun  of  olde  and  holy  doctouris,  to  the  pore  men  of  his  nacioun 
whiche  kunnen  litil  Latyn  ether  noon,  and  ben  pore  of  wit  and  of 
worldli  catel,  and  netheles  riche  of  good  will  to  please  God.  Firste 
this  pore  caitif  settith  a  ful  sentence  of  the  text  togidre,  that  it  may 
wel  be  knowun  fro  the  exposicioun  ;  aftirward  he  settith  a  sentence  of 
a  doctour  declarynge  the  text ;  and  in  the  ende  of  the  sentence  he 
settith  the  doctouris  name,  that  men  mowen  knowe  verili  hou  fer  his 
sentence  goith.  Oneli  the  text  of  holi  writ,  and  sentence  of  olde  doc- 
touris and  appreuyd,  ben  set  in  this  exposicioun. 

If  eny  lernyd  man  se  this  exposicioun  and  suppose  eny  errour 
therynne,  for  Goddis  loue  loke  he  wel  his  originals,  and  sette  ynne  the 
treue  sentence  of  these  doctouris ;  for  men  desiren  no  thing  in  this  ex- 
posicioun, no  but  profitable  treuthe  for  cristen  soulis.  Y  sette  shortly 
and  pleynly,  as  Y  may  and  kan,  the  sentence  of  these  doctouris,  and 
not  barely  her  wordis,  in  as  myche  as  thei  declaren  the  text,  and  seyen 
treuthe  groundid  on  holi  Scripture  ether  quyk  resoun,  and  accordynge 
with  the  blessid  lijf  of  Crist  and  his  apostlis;  desirynge  that  no  man 
triste  more  than  thus  to  her  sentence,  nether  to  eny  mannys  seying,  in 
what  euer  staat  he  be  in  erthe.  Thus  with  Goddis  grace  po're  cristen 
men  mown  sumdel  knowe  the  text  of  the  Gospel,  with  the  comyn 
sentence  of  olde  holy  doctouris,  and  therynne  knowe  the  meke  and 
pore  and  charitable  lyuyng  of  Crist  and  his  apostlis,  to  sue  hem  in 
vertues  and  blys;  and  also  knowe  the  proude  and  coueitouse  and 
veniable  lyuyng  of  Antecrist  and  his  fautouris,  to  fle  hem  and  her 


Lect.  VIII.  wycliffe's  apology  367 

cursid  dedis,  and  peyiies  of  lielle.  For  no  doute  as  oiire  Lord  Jhesu 
Crist  and  his  apostlis  profesien  pleynli,  Antecrist  and  his  cursid 
disciplis  shulen  come,  and  disseyue  many  men  by  ypocrisie  and 
tyrauntrie  ;  and  the  beste  armeer  of  cristen  men  ajens  this  cursid 
cheuenteyn  with  his  oost,  is  the  text  of  holy  writ,  and  namely  the 
gospel,  and  veri  and  opyn  ensaumple  of  Cristis  lijf  and  his  apostlis, 
and  good  lyuyng  of  men  ;  for  thanne  thei  shulen  knowe  wel  Antecrist 
and  his  meynee  bi  her  opyn  dedis  contrarie  to  Cristis  techyng  and 
lyuyng.  Crist  Jhesu,  for  thyn  endeles  power,  mercy  and  charitie, 
make  thi  blessid  lawe  knowun  and  kept  of  thi  puple,  and  make  knowun 
the  ypocrisie  and  tirauntrie  and  cursidnesse  of  Antecrist  and  his 
meynee,  that  thi  puple  be  not  disseyued  bi  hem.  Amen,  gode  Lord 
Jhesu. 

I  add  chapters  v.  and  xvi.  from  the  '  Apology  for  the  Lol- 
lards,' ascribed,  upon  probable  grounds,  to  Wycliffe,  and  pub- 
lished by  the  Camden  Society.  These  chapters  are  fair  spe- 
cimens of  Wycliffe's  argumentation,  but  by  no  means  of  his 
declamation,  and  of  his  invective,  which  he  carries  to  lengths 
of  great  severity,  exposing  with  an  unsparing  hand  the  eccle- 
siastical abuses  of  his  time. 

An  oJ>er  is  ])is  ])at  is  put  and  askid,  pat  ilk  prest  may  vse  ])e  key  in  to 
ilk  man.  To  ]?is,  me  J>inki]7,  I  may  wel  sey  Jjus,  syn  al  power  is  of  God, 
and,  as  ])e  gospel  seij^,  J^er  is  no  power  but  of  God,  ne  man  may  do  no 
ping,  but  if  he  jeue  him  pe  mi^t ;  as  Crist  seip,  50  may  wi]?  out  me  do 
no  ping,  pat  onely  a  man  vse  his  power  in  to  ilk  ping,  as  God  werkip  bi 
him,  and  lefip  him  to  vse  it  vnblamfully,  and  no  forper,  and  fro  pat  may 
no  man  lette  him.  And  pis  is  pat  we  sey,  pat  we  may  of  rijt  so,  if  per 
be  ani  vsing  of  power,  or  callid  power,  pat  is  not  bi  Crist,  pat  is  no 
power,  but  fals  pride,  and  presumid,  and  onli  in  name,  and  as  to  jend 
and  effect  is  nowjt.  Neuerpeles,  a  man  is  seid  to  haue  power,  and  leue 
to  vse  power,  in  many  wyse,  as  sum  bi  lawe  and  ordre  of  kynd,  sum  bi 
lawe  and  ordre  of  grace,  and  some  bi  lawe  and  ordre  made  and  writun. 
And  so  it  is  seid  bi  lawe  pat  is  mad  of  ])e  kirk,  pat  ilk  prest  hap  pe 
same  power  to  vse  ])e  key  in  to  ani  man  in  po  poynt  of  dep,  as  pe 
pope ;  but  not  ellis,  not  but  autorite  in  special  be  jeuun  to  him  of  pe 
kirk  per  to.  But  if  it  be  askid,  if  ilk  prest  mai  vse  pe  key  in  to  ilk 
man,  pat  is  to  sey,  to  assoile  him,  or  ellis  to  bind  him  fro  grace,  it  semip 
opunly  pat  ilk  prest  may  not  asoile  ilk  to  bring  him  to  heuyn ;  for  pe 
gospel  seip,  pat  Crist  in  a  coost  of  pe  Jewis  migt  not  do  ani  vertu  per, 


368  WTCLIFFe's  apology  Lect.  viii. 

for  }>e  vntrouj),  not  but  helid  a  few  seek,  ]fe  handus  leyd  viDon,  and  he 
maruelid  for  J>er  vntrowj) ;  J^an,  wan  Crist,  ])at  is  God  Almijty,  and  of 
his  absolut  power  may  al  ping,  and  no  ])ing  is  vnpossible  to  him,  nor  no 
J>ing  may  a^en  stond  him,  and  jet  may  not  of  his  ordinat  power  jele  pe 
folk  for  J>er  ontrow]?,  and  vndisposicoun,  and  vnabilite  to  reseyne,  mich 
more  ani  oper  bene]?  may  not  help,  but  after  })e  disposicoun  of  him  Jjat 
receyui]?.  Al  so  it  semi])  bi  ]ns,  })at  J^e  pope  may  not  bring  in  to  grace, 
ne  bles,  him  ]>at  lasti])  in  vntrow]),  and  in  ])er  synnis ;  os  it  semi})  bi 
Jewes  and  Saracenis  and  o])er  swilk,  os  is  witnessid,  and  of  fei])ful 
witnes.  Also  God  jaue  him  no  farrer  power,  not  but  asoyl  hem  ])at 
wil  leue  ])er  synne,  or  to  bynd  hem  and  curse  ])at  wil  dure  ])er  inne. 
And  bi  so  \>e  same  resoim  none  o])er  prest  may  not  excede.  And  if  it 
be  axid  Ave])er  ilk  prest  ha])  as  mykil  power  as  })e  pope,  as  a  nenist  God, 
it  semi])  to  me  ])at  is  foly  to  a  ferme  in  ])is  case  oi])er  jie  or  nay,  be  for 
})at  it  mai  be  schewid  out  of  Holi  Writte.  And  so  it  semi])  al  so  to  me 
it  is  foly  ani  prest  to  presume  him  to  haue  euyn  power  wi]?  ilk  o])er,  be 
for  ])at  he  may  gi'ound  him  in  ]>e  fei]) ;  and  foli  it  were  to  deme  to  ani 
man  any  power  })at  God  ha])  jeuun  to  him,  or  ])e  vsyng  ])er  of;  for 
certeyn  I  am,  how  euer  ani  man  tak  power  to  him,  or  vse  power,  it 
profi])  not,  but  in  as  myche  as  God  jeui])  it,  and  wirki})  wi])  it,  and  con- 
fermij)  it ;  and  certayn  I  am,  ])at  ])e  power  ])at  God  jaue  Petre,  he  jaue 
it  not  to  him  alone,  ne  for  him  alone,  but  he  jaue  it  to  pe  kirk,  and  for 
J)0  kirk,  and  to  edifying  of  al  pe  kirk ;  os  he  jeui])  pe  sijt  of  pe  ee,  or 
pe  act  of  ani  membre  of  pe  body,  for  help  and  edifying  of  al  pe  body. 
And  Sent  Jerom  sei]),  Sum  tyme  pe  prest  was  J^at  ilk  ])at  pe  bischop. 
And  bi  for  ])at  bats  were  made  in  religioun  bi  stinging  of  pe  fend,  and 
was  seid  in  pe  peple,  I  am  of  Petre,  I  of  Poule,  I  of  Apollo,  I  of 
Cephas,  ])e  kirkis  were  gouernid  bi  pe  comyn  of  prestis  counseil.  But 
after  J)at  ilk  man  callid  him  ])at  he  baptijid  his,  and  not  Grists,  pan  was 
in  al  pe  world  wordeynid  ])at  On  of  pe  prestis  schuld  be  made  chefe, 
and  pe  seedis  of  scysmis  schuld  be  tan  a  wey.  })er  as  prestis  wit  hem  to 
be  to  |)er  souereynis  sogets  be  custum  of  ])is  kirk,  so  knaw  bischopis 
hem  to  be  more  of  custum  ])an  of  dispensacoun  of  Goddis  trow]),  to  pev 
sogets,  pe  more  per  souereyns,  and  in  comyn  J)ei  owe  to  gouern  ])e  kirk. 
Lo  I  sey  bischops  present,  and  })at  ])ei  stondun  nere  him,  prests  mai  in 
pe  autere  mak  pe  sacrament.  But  for  it  is  writun,  Prestis  ])at  prestun 
wel  bi  ])ei  wor])i  had  dowble  honor,  most  })at  pei  trauel  in  word  and 
teching :  it  semi])  hem  to  preche,  it  is  profit  to  bles,  it  is  congrew  to 
sacre,  it  cordi])  to  hem  to  jeue  comyn,  it  is  necesari  to  hem  to  visit  pe 
sek,  to  pray  for  ]?e  vnmijti,  and  to  fele  of  pe  sacraments  of  God.  per- 
for  non  of  pe  bischopis,  enblawen  wij)  enuy  of  j)e  fendis  temptacoun, 


Lect.  VllT.  WYCLIFFE's   APOLOGY  369 

\vra]),  if  prestis  ouerwile  exort  or  monest  f  e  peple,  if  ]>ei  preclie  in 
kirk,  if  ]>ej  blesse  |)e  floc,  for  I  schal  sey  ])us  to  hym  fat  werai})  me 
J>eis  ]>ings,  he  ]?at  wil  not  prestus  do  }>ing  }>at  ]?ei  are  bidun  of  God,  sey 
he  wat  is  more  fan  Crist?  or  wat  may  be  put  beforn  his  flesch  and  blode? 
And  if  f e  prest  sacre  Crist  wan  he  blessif  fe  sacrament  of  God  in  fe 
auter,  awi])  he  not  to  blessif  ]>e  peple,  fat  dredi])  not  to  sacre  Crist  ?  A 
je  vniust  prestis  f  orow  jor  bidding  f  e  prest  of  God  stintif  fe  office  of 
blessing,  a  bowt  lewid  men  and  women ;  he  stintif  f  e  wark  of  tong,  he 
haf  no  tryst  of  preching,  he  is  dockid  on  ilk  part,  he  haf  only  fe  name 
of  prest,  but  he  holdif  not  fe  plente  ne  fe  perfeccoun  fat  fallif  to  his 
consecracoun.  I  pray  2,ow  prestis  wat  honor  is  f is  to  jow,  fat  je  bring 
in  f  e  damage  of  alle  f  e  folke  ?  for  wan  worf  i  diligence  is  taken  a  wey  fro 
prestis  bi  power,  sum  smiting  of  mischef  rysif  in  f  e  flok ;  and  je  geyt 
harme  of  f  e  Lordis  patrimoyn,  til  je  alon  wil  be  potentats  in  f  e  kirk. 
And  for  f  i  seyn  of  er  men  f  us,  if  a  bischop  in  conferming  fat  he  appro- 
prif  to  him  silf  wif  out  ground  of  f  e  Scripter,  jeuif  grace,  whi  not  a 
simple  prest  ])at  in  merit  is  more  at  God,  of  mor  merit,  gefe  mor  worf  i 
sacraments  ?  Sum  tyme  was  no  resoun,  wan  f  e  same  was  bischop  and 
prest.  And  bi  forn  fat  presthed  was  hied,  or  veriliar  filyd  cursidly  bi 
f  e  world,  ilk  prest  of  Crist  was  callid  indifferently  prest  and  bischop, 
as  it  semif  be  f  e  wordis  of  Jerom. — [Chap.  V.] 

An  of  er  poynt  fat  is  putt  is  f  is,  fat  f  er  is  no  pope  ne  Cristis  vicar, 
but  an  holy  man.  pis  may  f  us  be  prouid ;  for  him  be  howuif  to  be 
halowid  wif  f  e  sacrament  of  baptem,  and  of  presthed,  and  of  dignite. 
And  oft  is  bidun  to  prestis  in  f  e  lawe  to  be  holy  and  halow  of  er ;  and 
for  hoyle  of  haloAving  of  f  e  Lord  is  vp  on  hem.  Also  ]ms  pray  if  Crist 
for  alle  his,  Fader,  haloAV  hem  in  trowf ,  f  i  word  is  trowf ,  as  ])u  hast 
send  [me]  in  to  f  e  world,  so  haue  I  send  hem  in  f  e  world,  and  for  hem 
I  halow  myself,  fat  f ei  be  halowid  in  trowf.  And  f us  is  hadde  in 
decreis ;  Lo  it  aperif  how  f ei  schal  schap  f e  perel  of  f e  charge,  fat  fey 
be  f  olid  to  minister  prestly  of  er  sacraments,  for  fey  are  remeuid  fro  f  is 
not  only  for  heresy,  or  of  er  ilk  gretter  syn,  but  also  for  negligens.  In 
wilk  fingis  bysily  it  is  to  not,  fat  f  e  sacrament  of  presthed  befor  of  er, 
more  worf  ily,  and  wif  cure,  is  to  be  jeuen  and  tane ;  for  but  if  it  be 
so  jeuen  and  tane,  it  schal  fuyle  to  be  rate  or  ferme,  os  it  is  not  perfitly 
done.  Ofer  sacramentis  are  jeuen  to  ilk  man  for  himsilf,  and  silk  fey 
are  to  ilk  man  as  f  ei  are  tane  wif  hart  and  concience ;  but  f  is  is  not 
only  jeuen  for  hem  silf  but  for  ofer,  and  ferfor  is  nede  it  be  tane  wif 
verrey  hart  and  clene  concience  for  him  self,  and  as  to  ofer,  not  only 
wif  out  ilk  synne,  but  also  wif  out  ilk  name  of  fame,  for  schunder  of 
bref er,  to  was  profit  presthed  is  ^euen,  not  only  fat  men  prest,  or  be 

BB 


370  WTCLIFFe's  influence    ^^-^  Lect.  viii. 

boiin,  but  ]>at  J^ey  prophet.  J>is  Jjc  decre.  Lo  it  semij?  J^at  lie  is  not 
lijtly  nor  profijtly  Grists  pope  ne  his  vicar  but  if  he  be  holi,  ellis  whi 
is  he  callid  holiest  fadir  ?  Jerom  seij>,  pei  ]>at  ordeyn  of  \qx  assessory 
in  to  prestis,  and  putten  hem  ]?er  lif  in  to  sclaundre  of  pe  peple,  J^ei 
are  gilty  of  pe  vnfeij^fulnes  of  hem  pat  are  sclaundred.  For  soj?  pei  are 
chosun  to  pis  to  be  prestis  to  pe  peple,  as  pei  ordeynid  befor  to  dignite, 
so  pey  hau^t  to  schine  be  for  in  holincs,  ellis  whi  are  pei  preferrid  to 
oper  ]'at  passun  in  grace  of  meritis.  And  perfor  seip  pe  pope  Symachus, 
He  is  to  be  countid  most  vile,  pat  is  befor  in  dignite,  but  if  he  precelle 
in  sciens  and  holines.  pe  Lord  seip  bi  pe  prophet,  for  pu  hast  putt  a 
wey  sciens,  I  schal  put  pe  a  wey  pat  pu  vse  not  presthed  to  me.  pe 
dede  of  pe  bischop  houwip  to  pass&'iarbo'ue  pe  lif  of  pe  peple,  as  pe  lif 
of  pe  ^erd  transcendip  pc  lif  of  pe  schep,  as  Gregori  seip.  And  Bernard 
seip  to  pope  Eugeni,  pi  felawis  bischops  lere  J^ei  at  pe  to  haue  not  wip 
hem  childer  so  curhid,  nor  jeng  men  kembid  or  compert ;  certeyn  it 
semip  not  chapletid  men  to  ren  among  pe  mytrid  vncorteysly ;  pof  pu 
desire  to  be  prest,  or  be  befor  to  hem  pat  pu  coueitist  not  to  profijt  to, 
ouer  proudly  in  coueiting  subieccoun  of  hem,  of  pe  "wilk  pu  hernist 
not  pere  jele. — [Ghap.  XVI.] 

The  uniformity  of  diction  and  grammar  in  Wycliffe's  New 
Testament  gave  that  work  a  weight,  as  a  model  of  devotional 
composition  and  scriptural  phraseology,  which  secured  its  ge- 
neral adoption ;  and  not  only  the  special  forms  I  have  men- 
tioned, but  many  other  archaisms  of  the  standard  translation, 
both  in  vocabulary  and  in  syntax,  were  adopted  by  Purvey  and 
Tyndale  from  Wy cliff e,  and  by  the  revisors  of  1611  from 
Tyndale,  and  have  thus  remained  almost  without  change  for 
500  years.  In  fact,  so  much'  of  the  Wycliffite  sacred  dialect  is 
retained  in  the  standard  version,  that  though  a  modern  reader 
may  occasionally  be  embarrassed  by  an  obsolete  word,  idiom,  or 
spelling,  which  occurs  in  Wycliffe's  translation,  yet  if  the  great 
reformer  himself  were  now  to  be  restored  to  life,  he  would 
probably  be  able  to  read  our  common  Bible  from  beginning  to 
end,  mthout  having  to  ask  the  explanation  of  a  single  passage. 

The  works  of  Langlande  and  of  Wycliffe,  especially  the 
latter,  introduced  into  English  a  considerable  number  of  words 
directly  or  indirectly  derived  from  the  Latin.     They  produced 


Lect.  VIII.  LANGLANDE   AND   WYCLIFFE  371 

a  still  greater  effect  on  the  common  speech  of  the  land,  by- 
popularizing  very  many  Latin  and  Eomance  words,  which 
there  is  reason  to  think,  had  never  before  acquired  a  familiar 
currency,  but  had  been  confined  to  the  dialect  of  books,  or  at 
least  to  the  conversation  of  the  regularly  educated  classes. 

The  circulation  of  Piers  Ploughman  among  these  classes  was 
obstructed  by  its  poetic  form,  which  —  though  a  recommenda- 
tion in  the  eyes  of  the  masses  who  know  poetry  only  as  an  oral 
chant  —  was  fatal  to  its  success  in  literary  circles ;  for  the  de- 
liberate opinion  and  taste  of  the  educated  public  had  con- 
demned alliterative  and  rhythmic  verse  as  a  barbarous  relic  of 
an  ao:e  of  inferior  culture. 

Wyclifife,  too,  was,  in  a  great  measure,  excluded  from  the 
same  circles,  by  the  combined  authority  of  the  State  and  the 
Church,  which  had  denounced  the  reformer,  his  opinions,  and 
his  translations,  as  heretical,  and  therefore  as  treasonable.* 
Hence  they  were  circulated  and  read  chiefly  by  persons  whose 
humble  station  enabled  them  to  enjoy  a  privacy  in  their  studies, 
which  the  conspicuous  position  of  men  of  higher  rank  in  the 
social  hierarchy  put  quite  out  of  their  reach.  Still,  the  con- 
troversial writings  and'  the  translations  of  the  early  reformers 
very  sensibly  affected  the  theological  and  ethical  nomenclatures 
of  the  English  language  in  all  succeeding  time ;  and  many  of 
the  very  best  features  of  our  modern  version  of  the  Scriptures 
are  due  to  their  labours.  They  also,  no  doubt,  contributed 
indirectly  to  the  copiousness  and  force  of  literary  diction ;  but 
this  effect  was  produced,  not  because  they  were  regarded  as 
authorities  in  language,  and  studied  as  models  of  composition 

*  *In  tliis  5ere,'  says  Capgrave,  'the  Pope  wrote  special!  to  the  Kyng  for 
these  Lolardis,  tretouris  to  God  and  to  the  Kyng.  In  his  letteris  he  prayed  the 
Kyng  that  he  schuld  be  redy  to  punche  al  thoo  whom  the  bischoppis  declared  for 
heretikes.' — Chronicle,  a.d.  1394,  p.  261,  262. 

"While  the  king  was  resisting  the  pope's  wishes  for  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious 
statutes,  he  was  willing  enough  to  accept  the  support  of  the  Lollards;  but,  that 
question  settled,  he  was  as  '  redy  to  'punche '  them  as  bloody  Queen  Mary  her- 
self a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later. 

BB  2 


372  LANGLANDE   AND  WYCLIFFE  Lect.  VIII. 

or  as  repositories  of  an  enlarged  vocabulary,  but  because  they 
had  enriched  the  every-day  speech  of  the  people,  and  thus 
increased  the  affluence  of  that  fountain  which  is  the  true  source 
whence  all  great  national  poets  draw  their  stock  of  living  and 
breathing  words. 

Although  Langlande  and  the  school  of  Wycliffe  are  not  to  be 
looked  upon  as  great  immediate  agencies  in  the  general  im- 
provement of  written  English,  or  as  standards  of  the  literary 
dialect  in  their  own  age,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  they  did 
exercise  a  direct  influence  upon  the  diction  of  Chaucer,  and, 
though  him,  on  the  whole  literature  of  the  nation. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  political  party  to  whose  fortunes 
Chaucer  was  attached,  and  of  which  he  was  a  conspicuous 
member,  was  inclined  to  favour  and  protect  Wycliffe  and  his 
followers  ;  and  it  must,  of  course,  have  sympathized,  so  far  as  a 
mediaeval  aristocracy  could  do  so,  with  the  popular  body  which 
constituted  the  real  public  both  of  the  theologian  and  of  Piers 
Ploughman.  Hence  it  is  not  possible  that  Chaucer  should 
have  been  unacquainted  with  the  writings  of  the  poet,  or  of  the 
religious  reformers;  nor  could  a  scholar  of  his  acute  philo- 
logical sensibility  have  perused  those  remarkable  works,  with- 
out at  once  perceiving  that  they  contained  a  mine  of  verbal 
wealth,  a  vast  amount  of  the  richest  crude  material  for  poetical 
elaboration. 

Of  such  resources  a  genius  like  Chaucer  could  not  fail  to 
avail  himself,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  great  superiority  of 
his  style  over  that  of  his  contemporaries,  and  the  more  ad- 
vanced character  of  his  diction,  are  to  be  ascribed  in  some 
degree  to  his  use  of  these  means  of  improvement,  —  means 
which  the  more  fastidious  taste,  or  the  religious  and  political 
prejudices,  of  other  poets  of  the  age  prevented  them  from  re- 
sorting to. 


Lect.  Vlll.  MCESO-GOTIIIC   TEXT  373 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


MCESO-GOTHIC    TEXT   OF   THE    EIGHTH   CHAPTER   OF   MATTHEW. 

1.  Dala]?  pan  atgaggandin  imma  af  fairgunja,  laistidedun  afar  imma 
iumjons  manages. 

2.  Jail  sai,  manna  ])rutsfill  habands  durinnands  invait  ina  qifands : 
frauja,  jabai  vileis,  magt  mik  gahrainjan. 

3.  Jah  ufrakjands  handu  attaitok  imma  qifands:  viljau,  vair])  hrains! 
jah  suns  hrain  varf>  ]:»ata  prutsfill  is. 

4.  Jah  qa])  imma  lesus :  saiw,  ei  mann  ni  qipais,  ak  gagg,  J)uk  silban 
ataugei  gudjin  jah  atbair  giba,  J»oei  anabauj)  Moses  du  veitvodiJ>ai  im. 

5.  Afaruh  pan  pata  innatgaggandin  imma  in  Kafarnaum,  duatiddja 
imma  hundafaps  bidjands  ina 

6.  jah  qipands:  frauja,  piumagus  meins  ligij>  in  garda  uslipa, 
harduba  balvips. 

7.  Jah  qaj)  du  imma  lesus :  ik  qimands  gahailja  ina. 

8.  Jah  andhafiands  sa  hundafaps  qap  :  frauja,  ni  im  vairps,  ei  uf 
hrot  mein  inngaggais,  ak  patainei  qip  vaurda  jah  gahaihii])  sa  piumagus 
meins. 

9.  Jah  auk  ik  manna  im  habands  uf  valdufnja  meinamma  gadrauhtins, 
jah  qipa  du  pamma:  gagg,  jah  gaggi]>;  jah  an])aramma:  qim  jah  qimip; 
jah  du  skalka  meinamma :  tavei  pata,  jah  taujij>. 

10.  Gahausjands  pan  lesus  sildaleikida  jah  qap  du  paim  afarlaistjan- 
dam :  amen,  qipa  izvis,  ni  in  Israela  svalauda  galaubein  bigat. 

11.  Appan  qipa  izvis,  patei  managai  fram  urrunsa  jah  saggqa  qimand 
jah  anakumbjand  mip  Abrahama  jah  Isaka  jah  lakoba  in  piudangardjai 
himine ; 

12.  ip  pai  sunjus  piudangardjos,  usvairpanda  in  riqis  pata  hindumisto; 
jainar  vairpip  grets  jah  krusts  tunpive. 

13.  Jah  qap  lesus  ])amma  hundafada :  gagg  jah  svasve  galaubides, 
vairpai  pus.     Jah  gahaihioda  sa  piumagus  is  in  jainai  weilai. 

14.  Jah  qimands  lesus  in  garda  Paitraus  jah  gasaw  svaihron  is 
ligandein  in  heiton. 

15.  Jah  attaitok  handau  izos  jah  aflailot  ija  so  heito  ;  jah  urrais  jah 
andbahtida  imma. 


374  MCESO-GOTHIC   TEXT  Lect.  VIII. 

16.  At  andanahtja  fan  vaurfanamma,  atberun  du  imma  daimonarjans 
managans  jah  usvarp  jjans  ahmans  vaurda  jah  allans  ]>an8  ubil  habandans 
gahailida, 

17.  ei  usfuUnodedi  fata  gamelido  fairh  Esaian  praufetu  qifandan: 
sa  unmahtins  unsaros  usnam  jali  saubtins  usbar. 

18.  Gasaiwands  fan  lesiis  managans  hiuhmans  bi  sik,  haihait 
galeifan  siponjans  hindar  niarein. 

19.  Jah  duatgaggands  ains  bokareis  qaf  du  imma:  laisari,  laistja 
])uk,  fiswaduh  fadei  gaggis. 

20.  Jah  qa]>  du  imma  lesus:  fauhons  grobos  aigun  jah  fuglos 
himinis  sitlans,  if  sunus  laans  ni  habaif ,  war  haubif  sein  anahnaivjai. 

21.  Anfaruh  fan  siponje  is  qaf  du  imma:  frauja  uslaubei  mis 
frumist  galeipan  jah  gafilhan  attan  meinana. 

22.  If  lesus  qaf  du  imma :  laistei  afar  mis  jah  let  fans  daufans 
filhan  seinans  daufans. 

23.  Jah  inatgaggandin  imma  in  skip,  afariddjedun  imma  siponjos  is. 

24.  Jah  sai,  vegs  mikils  varf  in  marein,  svasve  fata  skip  gahulif 
vairf  an  fram  vegim ;  if  is  saislep. 

25.  Jah  duatgaggandans  siponjos  is  urraisidedun  ina  qifandans: 
frauja,  nasei  unsis,  fraqistnam. 

26.  Jah  qaf  du  im  lesus:  wa  faurhteif,  leitil  galaubjandans ! 
panuh  urreisands  gasok  vindam  jah  marein,  jah  varf  vis  mikil. 

27.  If  fai  mans  sildaleikidedun  qifandans:  wileiks  ist  sa,  ei  jah 
vindos  jah  marei  ufhausjand  imma  ? 

28.  Jah  qimandin  imma  hindar  marein  in  gauja  Gairgaisaine,  gamo- 
tidedun  imma  tvai  daimonarjos  us  hlaivasnom  rinnandans,  sleidjai  filu, 
svasve  ni  mahta  manna  usleif  an  f  airh  f  ana  vig  jainana. 

29.  Jah  sai,  hropidedun  qifandans :  wa  uns  jah  f us,  lesu,  sunau 
gufs?  qamt  her  faur  mel  balvjan  unsis? 

30.  Vasuh  fan  fairra  im  hairda  sveine  managaize  haldana. 

31.  If  fo  skohsla  bedun  ina  qifandans:  jabai  usvairpis  uns,  uslau- 
bei uns  galeif  an  in  f  o  hairda  sveine, 

32.  Jah  qaf  du  im  :  gaggif  I  If  eis  usgaggandans  galif  un  in  hairda 
sveine;  jah  sai,  run  gavaurhtedun  sis  alia  so  hairda  and  driuson  in 
marein  jah  gadauf  nodedun  in  vatnam. 

33.  If  fai  haldandans  gaf lauhun  jah  galeif andans  gataihun  in  baurg 
all  bi  fans  daimonarjans. 

34.  Jah  sai,  alia  so  baurgs  usiddja  vif  ra  lesu  jah  gasaiwandans  ina 
bedun,  ei  uslif  i  hindar  markos  ize. 


Lfct.  VIII.  GREEK  TEXT  375 

GREEK   TEXT    OF   EIGHTH   CHAPTER    OF   MATTHEW. 

^  Kara/3avri  ^e  nvr^  utto  tov  opovg  i]Ko\ovQr](Tav  ahr^  o-xXoi  TroXXoi' 
^  Kai  iSov  XtTrpog  TrpoaeXdojy  TrpooftKvvti.  ai/rw  Xe'ytuv  Kvpu,  kav  deXi]Q<, 
Zvvaaai  fxe  KaQapiaui,  ^  koX  itcrtiuag  rz/f  X^'^P^  i}\l>aTO  avrov  Xiywv 
QiXit),  KadapiadrjTL.  Kal  rvdiiog  eKadapiadr}  avrov  »/  Xiirpa.  ^  Kai  Xeyet 
aiiTu)  6  ^Irjaovg'Opa  firj^eri  £'t7r7je>  aX\a  vTraye  aiavTuv  Ztl^ov  rw  tfpcT, 
KoX  irpoaivEyKOV  to  ^wpov  o  TrpotreTa^ey  Mwi/(t>/C»  ttg  fjapTvpiov  avrolg. 

^  FttcreXdot'TL  ^e  aurw  elg  Kaoapvaovfx  TrpoariXQev  clvtio  tKaTovTupyog 
TTapaKciXwv  avTov  ^  Kal  Xiyioi'  Kuptf,  6  Trale  ^ov  ftifDXrjrai  ev  rij  otKiq. 
TTupaXvTtKog,  deivwg  ftaaavii^ofjieyog.  ^  Xiyei  avr^  'Eya*  eXdioy  depaTrtvcru) 
avroy.  ^  Kal  airoKpideig  6  licarovrap^oc  icpr)  Kvpu,  ovk  elfxi  iKavog  'iva 
fjiov  VTTO  T))y  (rriyr]v  eiaeXdi^g'  aXXct  fiuyoy  elire  Xoyio,  Kal  laOi'ifrerat  o 
7ra~ig  fxov.  ^  Kal  yup  eyu)  aydptoTrog  elfj-i  vtto  il,ov(iiay,  i^^ujy  vtt'  efxavTov 
(TTpariLjTag,  Kal  Xiyto  tovtio  IlopevdrjTi,  Ka\  Tvopeverai,  Kal  uXX(o" Epxpv,  Kal 
ep^erai'  Kal  rw  ^ovXu)  fjiov  noirjcroy  tovto,  Kal  Troiei.  ^^  ciKOixrag  de  o'Itjctovq 
edavfxaffEy  Kal  eiTreyrdig  uKoXovdovtriy  'A/xj/k  Xt'yw  vfxlyj  Trap'  ov^eyl  Toaav- 
TTiv  TritTTiv  ey  rw  ^IffpaijX  tvpov.  ^^  Xe'yw  Ze  vjxiy  on  -koXXoX  oltto  avaroXCjv 
Kal  dvcrjjLu/y  ij^ovaiy  Kal  ayaKXidliaoyrai  jj.eTa  'A/3joaajU  Kai  'laaixK  Kal 
'IaKw/3  iy  TTJ  j3aaiXet^  Tuty  ovpayioy'  ^^  ol  de  viol  riig  (iacriXeiag  IkJoXtjOi]- 
(Toyrai  elg  to  OKorog  to  i^wTtpoy'  tKil  t'orat  b  KXavd^-ibg  Kal  6  (ipvyfiog 
Twy  oBoyTwy,  ^^Kal  etTrsy  6  ^Iqaoug  t(o  £*:aroj''rap;(fj''Y7raye,  Cjg  ETTiarev 
(rag  yeyijdrjTU)  croi.      Kal  laOrj  b  7ra~ig  avTOu  ey  Ty  &p(^  eKeiyTj, 

^*  Kal  eXdojy  6  'Ir^aovg  elg  T))y  ohiav  Utrpov  el^ev  Ttjy  weydepay  avTOv 
(^ef^XttiJieyriy  Kal  irvpeaaovtray,  ^^  Kal  r"i\paro  Ttjg  x^^P^S  ttvTfjcj  Kal  a({)fj- 
Key  avTt)y  b  irvpeTog,  Kal  ^yepdrj,  Kal  ^irjKoyei  avr&i.  ^^  6\l>iag  de  yevo- 
fieyrjg  TrpofftjyeyKav  ai»rw  caifioyi^ofjiyovg  TroXXovg,  Kal  i^efiaXey  ra 
Tcvev^ara  Xo'yw,  Kal  Travrag  rovg  KaKutg  exovTag  edepcnrevcrey,  ^^  oiriog  ttXt]- 
p(i)6rj  TO  pr]Qey  lid  'llaaiov  tov  Trpocpt'iTov  XiyoyTog  Avrbg  Tag  acrdeveiag  ijfiuiy 
eXa(hy,  Kal  Tag  voaovg  eftaaraaey.  ^^'I3<i>v  5e  6  ^Irjfrovg  TroXXovg  oxXovg 
irepl  avrbv  eKeXevaey  aTreXde'ty  elg  rb  Trepay.  ^^Kai  TrpocreXdioy  elg  ypaf^- 
fxarevg  eiirey  avrui  Ai^acTKaXe,  itKoXovdijirio  aot  ottov  edy  airip^i],  ^'^  Kal 
Xiyu  ai/rw  6  ^Iriaovg  At  aXoiitEKeg  (j)U)Xeovg  Exovcriy,  kol  ra  irereLyd  rov 
ovpavov  KaTacrKr]yu}aeigf  b  ^e  vlbg  tov  aydpojTrov  ovk  £)(£t  ttov  r»)i'  K£(paX))y 
KXirrj.  21  iTfpoQ  ^g  riHy  fxaQr]Tuiy  avrov  eJirey  avrcZ  Kuptf,  ETrirpexpoy  fxoi 
Trpuiroy  airEXdely  Kal  0a;//at  rby  Tcarepa  fiov.  ^^  b  ^e  'Ir](TOvg  Xeyei  avra> 
^AkoXovOei  fjioiy  Kal  u^ee  rovg  veKpovg  ddxpai  rovg  eavriby  yeKpovg. 

^^  Kal  Ejjifidyri  avr(^  elg  TrXo'ioy  7)KoXovdi](Tny  aurw  ol  /jaOrjral  avrov. 
2*  Kal  Idov  (T£i<Tfibg  fxiyag  kyivETo  iy  rf]  OaXatrffr],  wore  rb  TrXoloy  KaXv- 
TTTEtrdai  viro  ruiy  KVfxdrioy'  avrbg  ^e  EKadEvdEy.  ^^  Kal  irpoaEXdbyrEg  ol 
fjiadrjTal  i'lyeipay  avroy  XiyovTEg  KvpiE  adaoy,  aitoXXv^eQa,     ^6  ^,^^  Xeyei 


376 


PURVEY'S   EEVISION 


Lect.  VIII. 


ahrolg  Tt  ^eiXo'i  Iote  oXtyoTrtoroc ;  tote  eyepdelg  eTrETifjrjcrev  toIq  avifxoiQ 
Koi  Tt)  OaXaaarj,  Kat  iyivETO  yaXrjprj  fieyaXrf,  ^7  qI  g^  ai'dpwTroi  idav' 
fxaaav  XiyoiTeg  HoraTrog  iariv  ovroQi  on  Kat  ol  avefxoi  koi  7;  OaXaaaa 
viraKovovffiv  avToi  ; 

28  Kat  IXdovTi  avTiZ  tig  to  irepav  elg  rijv  "^otpav  tCjv  Ta^apr]voJVy  virfiv- 
Ttjaav  avT(o  Zvo  iaifjiovi(^6jJ.£voL  sk  ruJv  fxvrjfjieiujy  £^£p)(OjU£vot,  j^aXeTroi 
XiaVf  ware  fji]  la)(^vetv  rivd  TraptXdeiv  did  Trjg  odov  tKeivrjg.  ^9  ^(^l  Jg,^^ 
efcpa^av  Xeyoyreg  Ti  i}}xiv  Koi  go'l,  vie  tov  deov  ;  I'jXdeg  (ode  irpd  i^aipov 
l3aaavtaat  v/xag',  ^^?)v  de  fiaKpdv  cnr*  avrwy  ayeXr]  "ypipiov  ■noXXior  fto- 
ffKOjuivrj'  31  01  ce.  daifxoi'eg  TrapeKoKovv  avTov  Xiyovreg  Ei  eK(3dXXeig}jiJidc, 
a-KoareiXov  iif^dg  dg  Tifv  ayiXr^v  rwv  "^^cipiov,  ^^  t:a\  el-rrep  avTolg  'Yxd- 
yere.  oi  de  e^eXdoyTeg  dTrrjXdov  elg  rrjv  ayiXrjv  twv  ^(oiptoV  Kai  Idov 
&p^r]aev  irdaa  //  dyiXr}  twv  -^oipiov  Kara  tov  KprffiPov  elg  t^v  ddXaffaav, 
Kal  dirlQavov  ev  Tolg  vlaaii'.  ^^01  Ze  ftodKOVTeg  e^vyov^  kui  direXdovTeg 
tig  Tijy  TToXiy  a-m'jyyeiXay  Travra,  Ka)  tu  toju  daifiori^ofieyojv.  ^^  Kal  Idov 
Trdo-a  7;  TToXig  eErjXOev  elg  avvdvT-qtnv  ra>  ^lr]aov'  fcai  IhovTEg  avTOV  7ra/3£- 
icdXeaay  oirwg  fxerajoij  cnro  Tuty  hp'niiv  avToiy, 


II. 

PSALM  CII.  (cm.)      FROM    PURVEY's   REYISION. 

Mi  soule,  blesse  tliou  the  Lord ;  and  alle  thingis  that  ben  with  ynne 
me,  blesse  his  hooli  name.  Mi  soule,  blesse  thou  the  Lord  ;  and  nyle 
thou  forgete  alle  the  geldyngis  of  him.  Which  doith  merci  to  alle  thi 
Avickidnessis ;  which  heelith  alle  thi  sijknessis.  Which  ajenbieth  thi 
lijf  fro  deth ;  which  corowneth  thee  in  merci  and  merciful  doyngis. 
Which  fillith  thi  desijr  in  goodis;  thi  jongthe  schal  be  renulid  as  the 
yyngthe  of  an  egle.  The  Lord  doynge  mercies ;  and  doom  to  alle  men 
sufFringe  ■wrong.  He  made  hise  weies  knowun  to  Moises ;  his  willis  to 
the  sones  of  Israel.  The  Lord  is  a  merciful  doer,  and  merciful  in 
wille ;  longe  abidinge,  and  myche  merciful.  He  schal  not  be  wrooth 
with  outen  ende ;  and  he  schal  not  thretne  with  outen  ende.  He  dide 
not  to  vs  aftir  oure  synnes ;  nether  he  jeldide  to  vs  aftir  oure  wickid- 
nessis.  For  bi  the  hijnesse  of  heuene  fro  erthe  ;  he  made  strong  his 
merci  on  men  dredynge  hym.  As  myche  as  the  eest  is  fer  fro  the 
west ;  he  made  fer  oure  wickidnessis  fro  vs.  As  a  fadir  hath  merci  on 
sones,  the  Lord  hadde  merci  on  men  dredynge  him  ;  for  he  knewe  oure 
makyng.  He  bithou^te  that  -^e  ben  dust,  a  man  is  as  hey ;  his  dai 
schal  iiowre  out  so  as  a  flour  of  the  feeld.  For  the  spirit  schal  passe  in 
hym,  and  schal  not  abide ;  and  schal  no  more  knowe  his  place.     But 


Lect.  VIII.  REaULAR   AND   IRREGULAR   VERBS  377 

the  merci  of  the  Lord  is  fro  with  out  bigynnyng,  and  til  in  to  with 
outen  ende ;  on  men  dredinge  hym.  And  his  rijtfulnesse  is  in  to  the 
sones  of  sones;  to  hem  that  kepen  his  testament.  And  ben  myndeful 
of  hise  comaundementis ;  to  do  tho.  The  Lord  hath  niaad  redi  his 
seete  in  heuene;  and  his  rewme  schal  be  lord  of  alle.  Aungels  of  the 
Lord,  blesse  je  the  Lord ;  je  myjti  in  vertu,  doynge  his  word,  to  here 
the  vois  of  his  wordis.  Alle  vertues  of  the  Lord,  blesse  je  the  Lord ; 
ge  mynystris  of  hym  that  doen  his  wille.  Alle  werkis  of  the  Lord, 
blesse  je  the  Lord,  in  ech  place  of  his  lordschipe ;  my  soule,  blesse 
thou  the  Lord. 


III. 

CHANGE   OF   IRREGULAR  INTO   REGULAR  VERBS. 

This  is  an  instance  of  the  same  tendency  to  regularity  of  form  which 
was  mentioned  in  a  note  on  the  Italian  dialects,  in  a  former  lecture. 

I  think  it  much  to  be  regretted  that  English  grammarians  have  so 
generally  adopted  the  designations  weak  and  strong^  instead  of  the  old 
terms  regular  and  irregular  conjugation.  I  do  not  contend  for  the  im- 
portance of  a  descriptive  nomenclature  in  any  branch  of  science,  and  I 
have  given  my  opinions  on  the  subject,  at  some  length,  in  the  ninth 
lecture  in  my  First  Series.  But  scientific  designations  which  assume  to 
be  descriptive  ought  to  be  truly  so,  and  this  the  terms  regular  and 
irregular^  as  applied  to  the  English  verb,  eminently  are,  while  the 
epithets  weak  and  strong  are  not  so  in  any  sense.  That  is  regular 
which  conforms  to  the  rule  or  type  most  generally  adopted ;  or,  if  there 
be  several  models  or  standards,  of  equal  authority,  then  that  is  regular 
which  conforms  to  any  of  them.  Now  the  only  general  rule  for  the 
conjugation  of  modern  English  verbs  is  that  the  past  tense  and  passive 
participle  are  alike,  and  that  both  are  formed  by  the  addition  of  d  or  ed 
to  the  stem.  It  is  true  that  among  the  few  English  verbs  which  inflect 
by  letter-change,  instead  of  by  augmentation,  small  groups  may  be 
formed  which  agree  in  their  mode  of  changing  the  stem  ;  and  these  are 
often  the  modern  forms  of  verbs  which  once  were  numerous  enough  to 
constitute  an  entire  conjugation,  sufficiently  regular  to  be  referred  to  a 
fixed  type.  But,  in  most  cases,  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  verbs 
composing  these  conjugations  have  been  lost,  and  those  remaining  have 
been  so  much  varied  in  inflection,  that  the  ancient  regularity  is  gone, 
and  they  can  no  longer  be  divided  into  normal  classes.  Goold  BroAvn, 
in  his  very  valuable  *  Grammar  of  Grammars,'  states  the  number  of 


378  BEGULAR   AND   IRREGULAR   VERBS  Lecf.  VIII. 

*  irregular  '  verbs  in  English  at  '  about  one  hundred  and  ten ;  '  but  as, 
though  he  introduces  keep  into  his  list,  he  omits  creep^  it  is  probable 
that  he  has  overlooked  others,  and  the  real  number  is,  no  doubt,  con- 
siderably larger.  Of  these  strong  or  irregular  verbs,  not  more  than 
five  agree  in  any  one  mode  of  inflection  ;  in  most  cases  but  two  or 
three  are  conjugated  alike,  and  in  very  many  the  verb  has  no  parallel 
at  all.  It  is  further  to  be  observed,  that  in  several  instances  these 
pairs  or  trij^lets  of  verbs,  though  now  conjugated  alike,  were  not  so 
originally,  and  therefore  they  are  doubly  irregular,  as  conforming 
neither  to  the  most  frequent  present  mode  of  conjugation,  nor  to  their 
own  primitive  type.  For  example,  creep,  keep,  and  sleep  form  the  past 
tense  and  passive  participle  alike  —  crept,  kept,  slept :  but  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  creopan  made  past  creap,  plural  crupon ;  cepan,  cepte; 
and  slapan,  slep,  participle  si  dp  en.  Keep,  then,  is  the  only  one  of 
the  three  which  conforms  to  ancient  precedent.  It  should  however  be 
noted  that  in  Matthew  viii.  24,  the  Lindisfarne  text  has  geslepde, 
the  Kush worth  slepte,  and  both  WyclifFe  and  Purvey  slepte,  for  the 
regular  Anglo-Saxon  slep. 

It  is  objected  to  the  term  regular,  that  the  forms  it  designates  are 
more  modern  than  the  inflections  by  letter-change,  which,  it  is 
insisted,  are  remains  of  primitive  modes  of  regular  conjugation ;  but 
this  objection  has  no  force,  because  we  may  admit  a  form  to  be  regular, 
without  insisting  that  it  is  primitive ;  and  what  are  called  the  strong 
verbs  in  English  are  most  truly  described  as  irregular,  because  they  do 
not  agree  in  conjugation,  either  Avith  each  other,  or  with  the  Saxon 
verbs  from  which  they  are  descended.  For  all  the  purposes  of  English 
grammar,  regular  and  irregular  are  the  best  inflectional  designations 
that  have  been  proposed ;  and  though,  in  the  nomenclature  of  compara- 
tive philology,  terms  are  wanted  which  shall  distinguish  augmentative 
inflections  from  those  by  letter-change,  it  is  better  to  employ,  in  teach- 
ing English,  the  old  phraseology,  until  some  more  appropriate,  or  at 
least  less  misleading,  terms  than  weak  and  strong,  shall  be  suggested. 


LECTUEE  IX. 


CHAUCER   AXD    GOAVER 


Befoee  entering  upon  the  special  subject  of  the  present  lecture 

—  the  literary  and  philological  merits  of  Chaucer  and  of  Gower 

—  it  will  be  well  to  take  a  retrospective  view  of  the  condition  of 
the  English  language  at  the  period  of  Chaucer's  birth,  to  glance 
summarily  at  the  causes  of  the  revolution  it  soon  after  under- 
went, and  to  consider  the  mode  in  which  great  authors  influence 
the  development  of  their  native  tongue  in  primitive  eras  of  lite- 
rature. 

The  controlling  power  and  wealth  of  a  nobility,  French  in 
parentage  or  descent,  and  the  consequent  adoption  of  the  Anglo- 
Norman  as  the  dialect  of  the  court,  of  parliament,  of  the  judicial 
tribunals,  and  of  such  of  the  foreign  clergy  as  resided  upon 
their  ecclesiastical  benefices  in  England,  had,  at  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  reduced  English  to  little  more  than  a  lingua 
rusticaf  which  was  thought  hardly  worthy,  or  even  capable,  of 
literary  culture ;  and  the  slender  merits  of  Eobert  of  Grloucester 
and  Eobert  of  Erunne  were  little  calculated  to  raise  the  vulgar 
patois  in  the  estimation  of  educated  men. 

Had  the  British  crown  won  the  permanent  and  established 
extension  of  its  territorial  possessions  on  the  Continent,  which 
the  splendid  series  of  victories  that  marked  the  best  years  of 
the  reign  of  Edward  III.  seemed  to  promise,  the  relative  im- 
portance and  more  advanced  refinement  and  civilization  of  the 
Anglo-French  provinces  —  which  embraced  the  whole  extent  of 


380  ENGLISH   OF   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY  Lkct.  IX. 

the  Atlantic  coast  of  France  —  would  have  given  them  a  weight 
and  a  predominance  in  the  social  and  political  life  of  the  king- 
dom, that  could  not  have  failed  to  be  fatal  to  the  national  spirit 
and  the  national  language  of  the  English  people.  The  reverses 
of  the  latter  years  of  Edward's  reign  compelled  the  government 
to  renounce,  for  a  time,  its  ambitious  dreams  of  conquest  and 
annexation,  and  to  strengthen  itself  in  the  affections  of  its 
English-born  subjects,  by  thoroughly  Anglicizing  itself,  and 
making  England  not  merely  the  royal  residence,  but  a  chief 
object  of  its  fostering  care,  as  the  real  home  of  the  throne,  the 
domestic  hearth  of  a  united  people. 

But  still  literary  culture  and  even  rudimentary  education 
were  attainable  only  through  the  medium  of  foreign  tongues. 
English  was  not  taught  in  the  schools,  but  French  only,  until 
after  the  accession  of  Eichard  II.,  or  possibly  the  latter  years  of 
Edward  III.,  and  Latin  was  always  studied  through  the  French. 
Up  to  this  period,  then,  as  there  were  no  standards  of  literary 
authority,  and  probably  no  written  collections  of  established 
forms,  or  other  grammatical  essays,  the  language  had  no  fixed- 
ness or  uniformity,  and  hardly  deserved  to  be  called  a  written 
speech. 

There  had  been  some  writers,  indeed  —  such,  for  example,  as 
the  author  of  the  Ormulum — whose  syntax  and  orthography  were 
so  uniform  that  a  consistent  accidence  might  be  constructed  for 
them ;  but  the  grammatical  system  of  no  one  would  answer  for 
any  other,  and  the  orthography  varied  so  much,  not  only  in 
different  copies  of  the  same  author,  but  even  in  copies  which 
are  the  work  of  one  scribe,  that  we  cannot  doubt  that  there  was 
extreme  irregularity,  both  in  the  modes  of  spelling  and  in  the 
articulation  and  the  inflectional  forms  of  the  same  words. 

I  have  hence  found  it  impossible  to  give  a  detailed  view  of 
the  inflectional  or  syntactical  history  of  this  period  of  English 
—  an  era  of  confusion  and  transition,  when  no  recognized 
standard  of  accidence  or  of  grammatical  combination  existed — 
and  I  have  only  illustrated,  in  a  general  way,  the  few  leading 


Lect.  IX.      COEXISTENCE  OF  ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH        381 

characteristics  of  form  which  were  common  to  all,  or  at  least  to 
most  of  those  who  attempted  to  compose  in  the  vernacular 
dialect. 

From  this  Babylonish  confusion  of  speech,  the  influence  and 
example  of  Chaucer  did  more  to  rescue  his  native  tougue  than 
any  other  single  cause ;  and  if  we  compare  his  dialect  with  that 
of  any  writer  of  an  earlier  date,  we  shall  find  that  in  compass, 
flexibility,  expressiveness,  grace,  and  all  the  higher  qualities  of 
poetical  diction,  he  gave  it  at  once  the  utmost  perfection  which 
the  materials  at  his  hand  would  admit  of. 

The  English  writers  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  an  advan- 
tage which  was  altogether  peculiar  to  their  age  and  country. 
At  all  previous  periods,  the  two  languages  had  co-existed,  in  a 
great  degree  independently  of  each  other,  with  little  tendency 
to  intermix  ;  but  in  the  earlier  part  of  that  century,  they  began 
to  coalesce,  and  this  process  was  going  on  with  a  rapidity  that 
threatened  -a  predominance  of  the  French,  if  not  a  total  ex- 
tinction of  the  Saxon  element.  The  political  causes  to  which 
I  have  alluded  arrested  this  tendency ;  and  when  the  national 
spirit  was  aroused,  and  impelled  to  the  creation  of  a  national 
literature,  the  poet  or  prose  writer,  in  selecting  his  diction,  had 
almost  two  whole  vocabularies  before  him.  That  the  syntax 
should  be  English,  national  feeling  demanded  ;  but  French  was 
so  familiar  and  habitual  to  all  who  were  able  to  read,  that  pro- 
bably the  scholarship  of  the  day  would  scarcely  have  been  able 
to  determine,  with  respect  to  a  large  proportion  of  the  words  in 
common  use,  from  which  of  the  two  great  wells  of  speech  they 
had  proceeded. 

Happily,  a  great  arbiter  arose  at  the  critical  moment  of 
severance  of  the  two  peoples  and  dialects,  to  preside  over  the 
division  of  the  common  property,  and  to  determine  what  share 
of  the  contributions  of  France  should  be  permanently  annexed 
to  the  linguistic  inheritance  of  Englishmen. 

Chaucer  did  not  introduce  into  the  English  language  words 
which  it  had  rejected  as  aliens  before,  but  out  of  those  which 


382  DICTION   OF   CHAUCER  Lect    IX. 

had  been  already  received,  he  invested  the  better  portion  with 
the  rights  of  citizenship,  and  stamped  them  with  the  mint-mark 
of  English  coinage.  In  this  way,  he  formed  a  vocabulary, 
which,  with  few  exceptions,  the  taste  and  opinion  of  succeeding 
generations  has  approved ;  and  a  literary  diction  was  thus  esta- 
blished, which,  in  all  the  qualities  required  for  the  poetic  art, 
had  at  that  time  no  superior  in  the  languages  of  modern 
Europe. 

The  soundness  of  Chaucer's  judgment,  the  nicety  of  his  philo- 
logical appreciation,. and  the  delicacy  of  his  sense  of  adaptation 
to  the  actual  wants  of  the  English  people,  are  sufficiently  proved 
by  the  fact  that,  of  the  Romance  words  found  in  his  writings, 
not  much  above  one  hundred  have  been  suffered  to  become  ob- 
solete, while  a  much  larger  number  of  Anglo-Saxon  words  em- 
ployed by  him  have  passed  altogether  out  of  use.* 

It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  those  writers  who  do  most  for 
the  improvement  of  their  own  language,  effect  this  by  coining 
and  importing  new  words,  or  by  introducing  new  syntactical 
forms.  The  great  improvers  of  language  in  all  literatures  have 
been  eclectic.  They  do  not  invent  new  inflections,  forge  new 
terms,  or  establish  new  syntactical  relations ;  but  from  existing 
words,  discordant  accidences,  conflicting  modes  of  grammatical 
aggregation,  they  cull  the  vocabulary,  the  mode  of  conjugation 
and  declension,  and  the  general  sjmtax,  best  calculated  to 
harmonize  the  diversities  of  dialects,  and  to  give  a  unity  and 
consistence  to  the  general  speech. 

If  the  first  great  writer  be  a  poet,  his  selection  will,  of  course, 


*  In  this  number  of  obsolete  words  I  include  terms  of  general  application  only, 
and  not  the  technicalities  of  alchemy,  astrology,  and  the  like,  which  have  been 
foi'gotten  with  the  arts  to  which  they  belonged,  nor  those  words  peculiar  to  the 
religious  observances  of  the  Romish  Church,  which  are  not  now  understood  or 
freely  employed  in  England,  because  the  English  people  is  no  longer  familiar 
with  the  ritual  of  that  religion.  I  should  further  remark  that  many  Romance  as 
well  as  Saxon  words  used  by  Chaucer  are  now  so  changed  in  form  and  orthography 
that  they  are  not  readily  identified  with  their  originals  by  persons  not  familiar  with 
etymological  deduction. 


Lect.  IX.  DICTION   OF   GREAT   WRITERS  383 

be  in  some  degree  controlled  by  the  material  conditions  of  his 
art ;  but  as  the  poetic  form  embodies  the  highest  expression  of 
the  human  intellect,  his  diction  will  be  in  general  of  an  elevated 
character,  and,  for  aesthetic  reasons,  the  most  melodious  and 
graceful  words  will  be  chosen,  while  the  necessities  of  metre 
will  compel  the  adoption  of  a  variety  of  inflectional  forms,  when- 
ever the  accidence  of  the  language  admits  of  different  modes 
of  declension  and  conjugation. 

The  real  benefit  which  great  authors  in  general  confer  on 
their  native  tongue,  consists,  first,  in  the  selection  and  autho- 
rization of  truly  idiomatic,  forcible,  and  expressive  terms  and 
phrases  from  the  existing  stock;  and,  secondly,  in  the  embodying 
of  universal,  and  of  distinctively  national,  ideas  and  sentiments, 
in  new  and  happy  combinations  of  words  themselves  already 
individually  familiar.  Hence  it  will  often  happen  that  the  first 
great  writers  in  any  language  employ,  not  a  strange  or  an 
extensive  vocabulary,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  common  and 
a  restricted  one ;  and  the  merit  of  their  style  will  be  found  to 
depend,  not  upon  the  number  of  the  words  they  use,  but  upon 
a  peculiar  force  of  expression  derived  from  an  accurate  percep- 
tion of  the  laws  by  which  words  enlarge,  limit,  or  modify  the 
meaning  of  each  other,  and  a  consequent  felicity  in  the  mutual 
adaptation  of  the  elements  of  discourse,  and  their  arrangement 
in  periods. 

In  connection  with  this  point,  I  may,  ^vithout  departing  too 
far  from  our  subject,  notice  a  widely  diffused  error  which  it 
may  be  hoped  the  lexicographical  criticism  of  the  present  day 
may  dispel.  I  refer  to  the  opinion  that  words,  individually,  and 
irrespectively  of  syntactical  relations  and  of  phraseological  com- 
bination, have  one  or  more  inherent,  fixed,  and  limited  meanings 
which  are  capable  of  logical  definition,  and  of  expression  in 
other  descriptive  terms  of  the  same  language.  This  may  be 
true  of  artificial  words — that  is,  words  invented  for,  or  conven- 
tionally appropriated  to,  the  expression  of  arbitrary  distinctions 
and  technical  notions  in  science  or  its  practical  applications — 


384  SIGNIFICANCE   OF  WOIIDS  Lect.  IX. 

and  also  of  the  names  of  material  objects  and  of  the  sensuous 
qualities  of  things ;  but  of  the  vocabulary  of  the  passions  and 
the  affections,  which  grows  up  and  is  informed  with  living 
meaning  by  the  natural,  involuntary  processes  to  which  all 
language  but  that  of  art  owes  its  being,  it  is  wholly  untrue. 
Such  words  live  and  breathe  only  in  mutual  combination  and 
interdependence  with  other  words.  They  change  their  force  with 
every  new  relation  into  which  they  enter ;  and  consequently 
their  meanings  are  as  various  and  as  exhaustless  as  the  permu- 
tations and  combinations  of  the  digits  of  the  arithmetical 
notation.  To  teach,  therefore,  the  meaning  of  a  great  propor- 
tion of  the  words  which  compose  the  vocabulary  of  every  living 
speech,  by  formal  definition,  is  as  impossible  as  to  convey  by 
description  a  notion  of  the  shifting  hues  of  the  pigeon's  neck. 

This  may  be  readily  seen  by  the  examination  of  any  respect- 
able work  on  synonyms.  The  authors  of  these  treatises,  it  is 
true,  usually  attempt  discriminating  description  of  the  senses  of 
the  words  they,  compare  and  distinguish ;  but  their  definitions 
have  almost  always  reference  to  the  exemplifications  they  intro- 
duce of  the  actual  use  of  the  words  discussed ;  and  it  is  from 
the  context  of  the  passages  cited,  not  from  the  formal  defini- 
tions, that  the  student  learns  the  true  analogies  and  true 
differences  between  words  thus  brought  together.  In  short, 
without  the  exemplifications,  the  definitions  would  be  unintel- 
ligible, while  with  them  they  are  almost  superfluous.* 

The  power  of  selecting  and  combining  words  in  such  a  way 
that  each  shall  not  only  help,  but  compel,  its  fellow  to  give  out 
the  best  meaning  it  is  capable  of  expressing,  is  that  which  con- 
stitutes excellence  in  style,  command  of  language,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  art  of  best  saying  what  we  have  to  say.  No  such 
merit  is  possible  in  the  early  stages  of  any  language.  The 
words  are  too  few,  the  recorded  combinations  not  sufficiently 
multifarious,  to  have  tested  and  brought  out  the  various  mean- 

*  See  Illustration  I.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


Lect.  IX.     VOCABULARY  OF  FOURTEENTH  CENTURT         385 

ings  and  applications  of  which  words  are  susceptible;  and 
culture  is  not  yet  far  enough  advanced  for  the  existence  and 
conscious  recognition  of  a  range  and  variety  of  ideas,  images, 
and  sentiments,  wide  enough  to  have  demanded  any  great 
multiplicity  of  expression. 

But  in  the  period  of  English  literature  upon  which  we 
have  now  entered,  these  necessary  conditions  were  approxi- 
mately satisfied.  A  sufficient  variety  of  subjects  had  been  dis- 
cussed to  create  a  necessity  for  an  extensive  vocabulary,  and 
to  require  a  great  range  of  syntactical  and  logical  combination. 
The  want  of  words  had  been  supplied  from  Latin  or  Romance 
sources,  and  flexibility  of  structure  had  been  acquired  by  the 
translation  and  accommodation  of  foreign  phraseological  com- 
binations, by  the  resuscitation  of  obsolete  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
structions, and  by  hazarding  new  verbal  alliances.  Nothing  was 
now  wanting  but  the  presence  of  a  great  genius  to  avail  himself 
of  these  new-born  facilities  of  utterance,  or  some  special  occasion 
which  should  prompt  talent  of  a  less  original  cast  to  employ  them. 

In  all  great  conjunctures,  political  or  literary,  the  hour  and 
the  man  come  together.  When  the  harvest  is  prepared,  Provi- 
dence sends  forth  the  reapers  to  gather  it.  Langlande  and  other 
less  important  labourers,  including,  doubtless,  many  now  for- 
gotten, had  striven  to  cull,  out  of  the  chaos  of  Saxon,  French, 
and  Latin  words  which  confusedly  buzzed  around  them,  a 
vocabulary  suited  to  the  expression  of  English  ideas,  images, 
sentiments;  and  they  had  somewhat  blindly  groped  after  the 
fittest  association  of  these  words  in  phraseological  combinations. 

At  this  crisis  there  appeared  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of 
speech  that  have  illustrated  the  literature  of  modern  Europe — 
a  genius  gifted  with  the  keenest  sensibility  to  those  latent 
affinities  between  particular  words,  upon  which  their  most 
felicitous  combinations  depend,  with  the  soundest  judgment  in 
the  appreciation  of  the  power  of  individual  terms,  and  with  the 
most  exquisite  taste  in  the  selection  and  arrangement  of  them. 

The  stock  of  words,  the  raw  material  which  had  already  been 

c  c 


386  OBSOLETE   SAXON   WORDS  Lect.  IX. 

accumulated  for  literary  construction,  was,  as  we  have  seen 
already,  large  —  so  large,  in  fact,  that  no  great  additions  were 
required  in  order  to  furnish  a  complete  supply  for  all  the 
demands  of  the  poetic  art.  But  there  were  still  some  defi- 
ciencies in  the  vocabulary :  first,  a  want  of  words  suited  to  the 
exiofencies  of  the  Eomance  canons  of  verse,  which  not  Chaucer 
alone,  but  the  taste  and  judgment  of  the  English  people,  had 
decided  to  adopt  as  the  laws  of  poetical  composition;  and, 
secondly,  a  great  imperfection  in  the  dialect  of  morals  and  of 
philosophy. 

After  what  I  have  observed,  in  a  former  lecture,  upon  the 
great  expressiveness  of  Anglo-Saxon  in  matters  of  ethical  and 
intellectual  concern,  and  the  richness  of  its  vocabulary  in  the 
nomenclature  of  the  passions  and  the  affections,  it  may  seem 
almost  a  contradiction  to  affirm  that  this  is  the  very  point  in 
which  early  Saxon-English  was  most  deficient.  But  the  fact  is 
so,  and  it  was  precisely  this  class  of  native  words  which  had,  in 
the  largest  proportion,  become  obsolete.  The  Anglo-Saxons 
had  their  own  translations  of  the  Gospels,  the  Psalms,  and 
some  other  portions  of  Scripture.  They  had  a  theological  and 
an  ethical  literature,  and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that, 
in  spite  of  the  influence  of  a  Romanized  priesthood,  the  native 
language  was  more  habitually  employed  for  ecclesiastical  and 
religious  purposes  than  any  of  the  Romance  dialects  ever  had 
been.  The  obvious  reason  for  this  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  were  not  cognate  languages,  while  the 
Romance  tongues  were,  if  not  descended  from  the  Latin,  at  least 
nearly  related  dialects,  and  still  retained  a  great  resemblance  to 
it.  Hence,  while  a  French  or  an  Italian  ecclesiastic  could  easily 
acquire  a  competent  knowledge  of  the  language  with  which  his 
own  vernacular  was  most  nearly  allied,  and  while  some  tradi- 
tional familiarity  with  its  written  forms  was,  and  in  fact  still  is, 
preserved  among  even  the  unlettered  populace  of  Italy  and 
France,  the  speech  of  Rome,  the  consecrated  dialect  of  the 
Church,  was  wholly  strange  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  people.     The 


I 


Lect.  IX.  ANGLO-SAXON  MORAL  DIALECT  387 

native  clergy  could  acquire  it  only  by  long  years  of  painful 
labour,  and  even  its  technical  phrases  could  only  with  great 
difficulty  be  made  familiar  to  the  mind  and  ear,  or  articulated 
by  the  tongue,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  There  was,  therefore,  an 
absolute  necessity  for  the  employment  of  the  native  speech  in 
religious  and  moral  discussion ;  and  so  long  as  England  was 
independent  of  the  Continent,  there  existed  a  full  religious  and 
ethical  nomenclature.  But  early  in  the  eleventh  century,  in 
consequence  of  matrimonial  and  political  alliances  with  French 
princes,  Norman  influence  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  England, 
and  the  Conquest,  in  the  year  1066,  gave  the  finishing  stroke 
to  Anglo-Saxon  nationality,  and  introduced  not  only  a  new 
royal  dynasty,  but  an  army  of  foreign  priests  and  teachers,  who 
naturally  insisted  on  employing  the  language  of  Eome  in  all 
matters  pertaining  to  the  discharge  of  their  functions.  Anglo- 
Saxon,  consequently,  went  very  soon,  at  least  partially,  out  of 
use  as  a  medium  of  religious  instruction,  oral  or  written,  and 
of  moral  discussion.  When  sermons  and  homilies  were  less 
frequently  delivered  in  Anglo-Saxon,  when  that  language  was 
no  longer  employed  by  the  learned  in  the  treatment  of  themes 
connected  with  ethics,  philosophy,  and  the  social  duties,  it  was 
very  natural  that  the  words  belonging  to  those  departments  of 
thought  should  be  forgotten,  though  the  nomenclature  of  the 
various  branches  of  material  life  still  remained  familiar  and 
vernacular.  We  find,  accordingly,  that  in  the  three  centuries 
which  elapsed  between  the  Conquest  and  the  noon-tide  of 
Chaucer's  life,  a  large  proportion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  dialect  of 
religion,  of  moral  and  intellectual  discourse,  and  of  taste,  had 
become  utterly  obsolete  and  unknown.* 

The  place  of  the  lost  words  had  been  partly  supplied  by  the 
importation  of  Continental  terms ;  but  the  new  words  came 
without  the  organic  power  of  composition  and  derivation  which 
belonged  to  those  they  had  supplanted.     Consequently,  they 

^  See  longer  Notes  and  Illustrations  II.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture.  See  also 
Lecture  III.,  Illustration  IV. 

c  C  2 


388  DICTION   OF  CHAUCER  •         Lect.  IX. 

were  incapable  of  those  modifications  of  form  and  extensions  of 
meaning  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  roots  could  so  easily  assume, 
and  which  fitted  them  for  the  expression  of  the  new  shades  of 
thought  and  of  sentiment  born  of  every  hour  in  a  mind  and  an 
age  like  those  of  Chaucer, 

The  poet,  therefore,  must  sometimes  have  found  himself  in 
want  of  language  suited  to  the  largeness  and  brilliancy  of  the 
new  conceptions,  the  hitherto  unfelt  sentiments  and  unrevealed 
images,  the  strange  '  thick-coming  fancies,'  which  were  crowd- 
ing upon  him  and  struggling  for  utterance.  Where  should  he  find 
words  for  the  expression  of  this  world  of  thought  ?  where  metal 
to  be  stamped  with  this  new  coinage  of  the  brain  ?  Should  he 
resort  to  the  sepulchre  of  the  Saxon  race,  and  seek  to  reanimate 
a  nomenclature  which  had  died  with  the  last  of  the  native  kings  ? 
Or  should  he  turn  to  the  living  speech  of  a  cultivated  nation, 
whose  blood  was  already  so  largely  infused  into  the  veins  of  the 
English  people,  and  whose  tongue  was  almost  as  familiar  to 
them  as  the  indigenous  words  of  their  own  ?'  Had  Chaucer, 
under  such  circumstances,  attempted  the  revival  of  the  forgotten 
moral  phraseology  of  Saxondom  —  which  could  now  be  found 
only  in  the  mouldering  parchments  of  obscure  conventual 
libraries,  and  was  probably  intelligible  to  scarcely  a  living 
Englishman  —  he  would  have  failed  to  restore  the  departed 
nomenclature  to  its  original  significance,  and  would  have  only 
insured  the  swift  oblivion  of  the  writings  which  served  as  a 
medium  for  the  experiment.  On  the  contrary,  by  employing 
the  few  unfamiliar  French  words  he  needed,  he  fell  in  with  the 
tendencies  of  his  time,  and  availed  himself  of  a  vocabulary 
every  word  of  which,  if  not  at  first  sight  intelligible  to  the 
English  reader,  found  a  ready  interpreter  in  the  person  of 
every  man  of  liberal  culture. 

Langlande  was  the  Pipin,  Chaucer  the  Charlemagne,  of  the 
new  intellectual  dynasty  of  England.  The  one  established  the 
independence  and  the  sovereignty  of  his  house ;  the  other,  by 
a  wise  policy  and  by  extended  conquests,  carried  its  dominion 


Lect.  IX.        •  FRENCH  WORDS   IN   CHAUCER  389 

to  a  pitch  of  unprecedented  prosperity  and  splendour.  Chaucer 
was  a  prince  whose  fitness  for  the  sceptre  gave  him  a  right  to 
wield  it,  and  the  golden  words  he  impressed  with  his  own  image, 
and  scattered  among  his  countrymen,  were  the  medals  of  his 
coronation. 

Of  the  two  causes  which  conspired  to  favour  the  introduction 
of  French  words  into  English  verse  —  the  poverty  of  the  native 
vocahulary  and  the  necessities  of  rhyme  and  metre  —  the 
latter  is  much  the  most  easily  detected  and  traced;  and  we 
observe  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  French  words 
employed  by  Chaucer  and  Grower  are  those  which  contain  the 
rhyming  syllables  at  the  end  of  the  lines.* 

I  have  before  alluded  to  the  necessary  connection  between 
the  Eomance  system  of  versification  and  a  stock  of  words  ac- 
cented according  to  the  French  orthoepy.  This,  in  Chaucer's 
time,  tended,  as  can  easily  be  shown,  in  a  more  marked  way 
than  at  present,  to  throw  the  stress  of  voice  upon  the  final 
syllable  f,  contrary  to  the  Saxon  articulation,  which,  like  that 
of  the  other  Grothic  languages,  inclined  to  accent  the  initial 
syllable.  In  comparing  Chaucer's  versions  with  the  originals, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  Komaunt  of  the  Eose,  we  not  unfre- 
quently  find  that  he  has  transferred,  not  translated,  the  rhymes ; 
but  it  will  be  seen  that  a  very  large  share  of  the  French  words 
so  employed  by  him  were  such  as,  from  their  moral  uses  and 
significance,  were  inseparably  connected  with  Christian  doctrine 
and  ethical  teaching,  and  had  therefore  become  already  known, 
through  the  medium  of  ecclesiastical  Latin,  to  even  those  of 
the  English  people  who  were  not  familiar  with  the  courtly  and 
cultivated  French. 

Notwithstanding  the  necessity  thus  imposed  upon  Chaucer, 
as  the  translator  of  highly  imaginative  poems  into  a  tongue 
hitherto  without  literary  culture,  and  possessed  of  no  special 

*  See  First  Series,  Leet.  XXIV.  p.  538,  note. 
t  See  First  Series,  Lect.  XXIV.  pp.  527,  528. 


390  FRENCH  "WORDS  IN  CHAUCER         Lect.  IX. 

vocabulary  con ventioD ally  dedicated  to  poetical  use,  he  was  very 
sparing  in  the  employment  of  French  words  not  belonging  to 
the  class  which  I  have  just  referred  to  ;  and  he  shows  exquisite 
taste  and  judgment  in  his  selection  from  the  vocabulary  of  both 
languages,  whenever  the  constraint  of  metre  and  rhyme  left 
him  free  to  choose.  Hence,  though  the  Eomaunt  of  the  Eose, 
and  his  other  works  of  similar  character,  are  admirably  faithful 
as  translations,  their  diction,  which  is  an  anthology  of  the  best 
words  and  forms  of  both  languages,  is  more  truly  poetical  than 
that  of  the  originals.  In  the  hands  of  Chaucer,  the  English 
language  advanced,  at  one  bound,  to  that  superiority  over  the 
French  which  it  has  ever  since  maintained,  as  a  medium  of  the 
expression  of  poetical  imagery  and  thought. 

The  actual  number  of  Eomance  words  introduced  by  Chaucer 
is  very  much  less  than  has  been  usually  supposed.  His  rare 
felicity  of  selection  is  not  less  apparent  in  his  choice  of  native 
than  of  foreign  terms.  English  he  employed  from  principle 
and  predilection,  French  from  necessity,  and  his  departures 
from  the  genuine  idiom  of  the  now  common  speech  of  England 
ai'e  few. 

The  general  truth  of  these  observations  will  be  made  ap- 
parent by  a  few  numerical  facts.  The  translation  of  the  first 
part  of  the  Eoman  de  la  Eose,  or  that  which  belongs  to 
Guillaume  de  Lorris,  including  the  few  original  interpolations 
by  Chaucer,  contains  something  more  than  forty-four  hundred 
lines,  or  twenty-two  hundred  pairs  of  rhymes.  Of  these  pairs, 
between  one  hundred  and  twenty  and  one  hundred  and  thirty,  or 
rather  less  than  six  per  cent.,  are  transferred,  with  little  change 
of  form,  from  the  French  text,  instead  of  being  represented  by 
equivalent  words  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin.  The  convenience  of 
employing  rhymes  ready  matched  to  his  hands  was,  no  doubt, 
one  reason  why  the  poet  availed  himself  of  them,  or,  to  express 
the  same  thought  in  another  way,  why  he  introduced  into 
his  verses  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  French  words  of  which 
these  rhymes  consist. 


Lect.  IX.  FRENCH   WORDS   IN   CHAUCER  391 

The  translation  of  the  first  part  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose 
contains  about  thirty  thousand  words,  and  consequently  the 
number  of  French  words  employed  in  the  transferred  rhymes 
is  considerably  less  than  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  whole  number 
which  make  up  the  poem.  Now,  when  we  consider  the  com- 
parative poverty  of  native  English,  stripped,  as  we  have  seen 
it  had  been,  of  almost  its  whole  Anglo-Saxon  moral  and  in- 
tellectual nomenclature,  as  well  as  of  its  inflectional  rhyming 
endings,  when  we  remember  that  French  was  the  only  medium 
of  literary  culture,  and  was  almost  as  well  known  as  English  to 
those  for  whom  Chaucer  wrote,  it  would  seem  that  such  a  pro- 
portion of  French  words  —  less  than  one  per  cent.  —  was  not 
extravagantly  large  to  employ  in  rhyming  a  translation  of  a 
French  poem,  even  supposing  that  they  were  now  used  for  the 
first  time  in  an  English  book.  But,  in  point  of  fact,  they  were 
by  no  means  all  now  first  introduced  to  the  English  public  ;  for 
if  we  compare  these  words  with  the  vocabularies  of  earlier  and 
contemporaneous  English  authors,  we  shall  find  that  very  many 
of  them  had  been  already  long  in  use,  and  were  as  well  known 
to  Englishmen  as  any  words  of  Latin  or  French  extraction. 
Several  of  the  remaining  words  are  not  employed  by  Chaucer 
himself  in  his  other  works,  and  they  never  appear  again  in 
English  literature.  He  availed  himself  of  the  license  of  a 
translator  for  a  special  purpose,  and  when  that  purpose  was 
answered,  the  new  words  thus  used  were  dismissed  from  further 
service,  and  heard  of  no  more.  Hence  the  charge,  that  Chaucer's 
poems,  and  especially  his  translations,  have  corrupted  his  native 
speech  by  a  large  and  unnecessary  admixture  of  a  foreign  verbal 
element,  is  wholly  without  foundation.* 

*  Of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  French  words  which  make  up  the  jpairs  of 
rhymes  transferred  by  Chaucer  from  his  original,  the  following  are  wanting  in 
Coleridge's  Glossarial  Index  to  the  Literature  of  the  Thirteenth  Century:  — Ada- 
mant, address  (dress),  advantage,  allegement  and  allegiance  in  the  sense  of  alle- 
viation, amorous,  amoret,  anoint,  apparent,  attentive  (ententive),  avarice,  brief, 
chevisance,  coasting,  colour,  complain,  conduit,  confound,  covine,  curious,  discom- 
fiture, disease,  disperance,  displease,  divine,  embattled,  endure,  ensign,  fable,  fined. 


392  MIXED  CHARACTER  OP  ENGLISH  Lect.  IX. 

The  essential  character  of  English,  as  a  mixed  and  com- 
posite language,  was  indelibly  stamped  upon  it  before  the  time 
of  Chaucer.  As  compared  with  Anglo-Saxon,  it  may  pro- 
perly be  styled  a  new  speech,  new  in  syntax,  and  renewed  and 
enriched  in  vocabulary ;  yet,  in  spite  of  the  influx  of  foreign 
words  in  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  century,  it  was  no  more  a 
new  language  than  the  English  nation  was  a  new  people ;  and 
it  remained  always  a  fit  and  appropriate  medium  for  the  ex- 
pression of  English  thought  and  English  feeling,  changing  only 
as  the  new  nationality  .advanced  and  grew  to  the  fulness  of  its 
manhood. 

It  is  not  easy  to  make  an  intelligible,  specific  comparison  be- 
tween the  dialect  of  Chaucer  and  that  of  earlier  writers,  because 
there  is  perhaps  no  one  of  them  whose  subjects  agree  so  nearly 
with  those  treated  by  him,  that  their  diction  would  be  presumed 
to  correspond  as  closely  as  the  idioms  of  their  respective  periods 
would  allow.  The  style  of  his  prose  works,  whether  translated 
or  original  —  if,  indeed,  any  of  them  are  original  —  does  not, 

flowret,  fluter,  foundation  (foundement),  garment,  glory,  habit  in  sense  of  inhabit, 
hardiment,  illuminated  (enlumined),  jaundice,  lace  in  the  sense  of  net  or  snare, 
languor,  lineage,  losenger,  meagre,  mention,  misericorde,  moison,  musard,  muse, 
verb,  noblesse,  ounce,  weight,  person,  pleasant,  prise  in  the  sense  of  praise,  present 
(in  present),  ragonce  (should  be  jagonce,  hyacinth),  reasonable,  record,  recreantise, 
refrain,  religion,  remember,  remembrance,  renown,  request,  return,  scutcheon,  size, 
suckeny,  table,  towel,  vain,  victory,  vermeil.  Also  the  following,  of  which  the 
stem  is  found  in  Coleridge : — Accord«^c^,  acquaintaW^,  delitoz^s,  despitows,  anxious, 
outrageoMs,  paintwr^,  pleader,  ■portraitures,  repentance,  savored,  savorows;  and 
these,  of  which  derivatives  or  allied  forms  occur  in  Coleridge : — Courage  (coura- 
geous. Cole.),  garden  (gardener.  Cole.),  glutton  (gloterie,  Cole.),  measure  (measur- 
able, Cole.),  moneste  ( amonestment,  Cole.),  tressour  (tressed,  tressure.  Cole.).  The 
very  rapid  increase  of  the  French  element  in  the  English  vocabulary,  between  the 
beginning  and  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  renders  it  highly  probable 
that  many  of  these  ninety  words  had  already  been  introduced  by  other  -writers 
during  that  interval.  Some  of  them,  certainly,  such  as  religion  (which  occurs  in 
the  Semi-Saxon  of  the  Ancren  Riwle,  though,  strangely  enough,  not  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  thirteenth  century),  were  naturalized  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before 
Chaucer's  career  as  an  author  began.  Wlien  the  character  and  value  of  these 
words  are  considered,  I  believe  few  scholars  would  convict  Chaucer  of  the  crime  of 
corrupting  his  native  tongue,  even  upon  proof  that  he  was  the  first  English 
writer  who  had  ever  ventured  to  use  any  of  them. 


Lect,  IX,  Chaucer's  works  not  historical  393 

so  far  as  the  stock  of  words  is  concerned,  differ  very  essentially 
from  that  of  the  original  writings  ascribed  to  Wycliffe,  which 
discuss  similar  subjects ;  but  they  are  marked  by  more  of  artis- 
tic skill  in  composition,  and  by  greater  flexibility  and  grace  of 
periodic  structure. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Chaucer,  eminently  national  as,  in  spite 
of  the  extent  of  his  indebtedness  to  foreign  sources,  he  certainly 
is,  should  yet  never  have  thought  of  taking  the  subject  of  his 
inspiration  from  the  recent  or  contemporaneous  history  of  his 
own  country.  In  the  case  of  a  poet  who  did  not  concern  him- 
self with  the  realities  of  material  life,  but  was  devoted  to  didactic 
or  speculative  views,  or  even  to  depicting  the  higher  workings 
of  passion,  this  omission  would  not  seem  strange.  But  Chaucer 
lived  among  the  flesh-and-blood  humanity  of  his  time,  and 
deeply  sympathized  with  it.  He  was  a  contemporary  of  the  Black 
Prince,  and,  as  a  true  Englishman,  he  could  not  but  have  been 
profoundly  interested  in  the  campaigns  of  that  heroic  soldier, 
and  proud  of  the  trophies  of  Creci  and  Poitiers.  But  the  glories 
of  English  and  French  chivalry,  which  shed  such  a  golden  glow 
on  the  canvas  of  his  contemporary,  the  chronicler  Froissart,  are- 
nowhere  reflected  from  the  pages  of  Chaucer.  On  the  contrary, 
he  seems  studiously  to  avoid  allusion  to  the  history  and  political 
concerns  of  his  own  country,  even  when  they  lie  most  obviously 
in  his  path.  The  character  of  the  Knight,  in  the  Prologue  to 
the  Canterbury  Tales,  afforded  him  an  opportunity  of  enlivening 
his  verse  with  some  flush  of  national  exultation,  but  in  his  enu- 
meration of  the  Knight's  campaigns,  he  mentions  none  of  the 
scenes  where  English  valour  had  been  pitted  against  the  chivalry 
of  France ;  and  yet  he  tells  us  of  this  warrior,  that  — 

A.D.  1365.     At  Alisandre  he  was  whan  it  was  Avonne. 
Fill  ofte  tyme  he  hadde  the  bord  bygonne 
Aboven  alle  naciouns  in  Pruce. 
In  Lettowe  hadde  reyced  and  in  Euce, 
No  cristen  man  so  ofte  of  his  degre. 
In  Gernade  atte  siege  hadde  he  be 


■■■n. 


394  CHAUCER  AND   FROISSABT  Lect.  IX. 

A.D.  1344.     Of  Algesir,  and  riden  in  Belmarie. 

A.D.  1367.     At  Lieys  was  he,  and  at  Satalie, 

A.D.  1352.     Whan  thej  were  wonne  ;  and  in  the  Greete  see 

At  many  a  noble  arive  hadde  he  be. 

At  mortal  batailles  hadde  he  ben  fiilene, 

And  foughten  for  our  feith  at  Tramassene 

In  lystes  thries,  and  ay  slayn  his  foo. 

This  ilke  worthi  knight  hadde  ben  also 

Somtyme  with  the  lord  of  Palatye, 

Ageyn  another  hethene  in  Turkye,  &c. 

The  events  here  referred  to  extend  from  about  the  date  of 
the  battle  of  Creci  to  that  of  the  campaign  of  the  Black  Prince 
in  Spain,  but  the  Knight  participates  in  no  English  battle  ;  and 
though,  when  the  poet  speaks  of  the  martial  prowess  of  the 
Squire,  his  son,  he  mentions  that 

He  hadde  ben  somtyme  in  chivachie, 

In  Flaundres,  in  Artoys,  and  in  Picardie, 

he  does  not  take  occasion  for  any  expression  of  patriotic  senti- 
ment, or  even  intimate  that  the  young  soldier  had  there  been 
engaged  in  the  national  service,  or  in  anything  more  than  pri- 
vate raids  or  the  petty  warfares  of  feudal  barons,  in  which  the 
honour  and  interest  of  England  had  no  stake. 

The  silence  of  Chaucer  on  these  subjects  appears  still  more 
extraordinary,  from  the  fact  that  he  must  have  personally  known 
the  chronicler  Froissart,  who  was  long  in  the  service  of  Philippa 
of  Hainaut,  the  wife  of  Edward  III.,  and  who,  after  an  absence 
of  seven-and-twenty  years,  returned  to  England  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  II.,  '  to  iustifye  the  hystories  and  maters  that  he  hadde 
written,'  and  to  present  to  the  king  the  '  fayre  boke'  I  have  men- 
tioned, '  well  enlumyned,  couered  with  veluet,'  and  ^  garnysshed 
with  elapses  of  syluer  and  gylte,'  in  which  were  engrossed  '  all 
the  matters  of  amours  and  moralytees,  that  in  four  and  twentie 
yeres  before  he  hadde  made  and  compyled.'  * 

*  Froissart,  chap,  cc,  reprint  of  1812,  ii.  p.  609. 


Lect.  IX.     Chaucer's  obligations  to  fkench  poets  395 


Froissart,  as  appears  from  his  own  statements,  neglected  no 
opportunity  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  persons  intelligent  in 
political  and  military  affairs  ;  and  his  character  of  a  '  maker  of 
hystories'  was  as  well  known  both  in  France  and  in  England  as 
was  that  of  Thucydides  in  Grreece,  while  he  was  composing  his 
immortal  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  war.  His  reputation  as  a 
poet,  too,  learned  in  criticism  and  the  history  of  French  litera- 
ture, would  naturally  have  attracted  Chaucer  to  him.  Chaucer's 
Complaint  of  the  Black  Knight,  and  Froissart's  Dit  du  Cheva- 
lier Bleu,  are  the  same  poem,  in  an  English  and  a  French  dress, 
and  there  are  some  remarkable  resemblances  of  thought  and 
expression  between  Chaucer's  Book  of  the  Duchess  and  Frois- 
sart's Paradise  of  Love.  In  these  cases,  though  it  may  be 
impossible  to  say  which  was  the  original,  the  coincidence  proves 
that  the  works,  and  in  all  probability  the  person,  of  the  one 
author  were  known  to  the  other. 

Under  these  circumstances,  we  should  suppose  that  the  his- 
torical zeal  and  ability  of  Froissart  would  have  inspired  the 
English  poet  with  the  desire  to  celebrate  the  same  events  in  a 
poetic  form.  But  Froissart  himself  did  not  treat  historical  sub- 
jects in  verse,  and  poetry  seems  to  have  been  considered  a  fit 
vehicle  only  for  themes  of  a  more  imaginative  character  than 
the  hard  realities  of  contemporaneous  martial  and  political  life. 

Chaucer  borrowed  much  from  French  authors  —  more  even 
than  has  been  until  recently  supposed  —  and  the  influence  of 
French  literature  is  constantly  seen  in  his  works,  even  where 
they  are  not  translations ;  but  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose 
that  those  from  whom  his  tales  w^ere  directly  taken  had,  in  gene- 
ral, as  little  claim  to  originality  as  himself.  Continued  research 
is  constantly  carrying  further  back  the  invention  of  the  fables 
which  we  habitually  ascribe  to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  there  are 
but  few  of  them  which  can,  with  any  confidence,  be  affirmed  to 
belong  to  the  period  in  which  they  are  first  known  to  us  as 
existing  in  a  written  form. 

Few  things  in  literature  are  more  surpiising  than  the  antiquity 


396  LITERAUT  PROPERTY  Lect.  IX. 

and  universality  of  popular  fables.  Many  of  these,  considered 
as  natural  personifications  or  exemplifications  of  universal 
passions  and  moral  qualities,  may  be  supposed  to  have  arisen 
independently  of  each  other,  as  the  forms  in  which,  in  rude  ages, 
certain  primary  ideas  and  opinions  spontaneously  clothe  them- 
selves. But  there  are  others,  so  artificial  in  their  conception 
and  treatment,  and  so  marked  and  peculiar  in  the  selection  and 
character  of  their  personages,  that  it  seems  quite  impossible  that 
they  could  have  possessed  so  close  a  similarity,  if  they  had  been 
original  products  of  different  ages  and  countries ;  and  yet  they 
are  found  among  peoples  between  whom  no  intercourse  can  have 
existed  since  the  commencement  of  the  historic  period.  Every 
reader  of  Grimm  and  Firmenich  will  remember  the  diverting 
Low-German  story  of  the  race  between  the  hedgehog  and  the 
hare,  which  indeed  cannot,  in  its  present  form,  be  of  great  an- 
tiquity ;  but  it  is  affirmed  to  exist  in  some  of  the  North-American 
Indian  tribes,  who  certainly  neither  derived  it  from  nor  commu- 
nicated it  to  the  whites. 

In  Chaucer's  time,  whatever  had  been  given  to  the  world 
was  regarded  as  common  property.  Most  works  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  anonymous,  and  authors  seldom  made  any  scruple 
in  employing  inventions  or  poetical  embellishments  which 
suited  their  purpose,  without  acknowledgment,  and  evidently 
without  consciousness  of  wrong.  Our  modern  notions  of  the 
sacredness  of  literary  property,  of  the  perpetual  title  of  an 
author  to  the  coinage  of  his  own  brain,  are,  in  part  at  least,  the 
fruit  of  circumstances  dependent  on  the  mechanical  conditions 
of  the  art  of  printing.  So  long  as  books  were  multiplied  only 
by  the  slow  and  costly  process  of  manual  copying,  the  additional 
burden  of  a  compensation  to  the  author,  in  the  shape  of  a  copy- 
right, would  have  effectually  prevented  the  circulation  of  most 
works ;  and  writers  who  toiled  for  present  fame  or  future  im- 
mortality would  have  defeated  their  own  purpose  by  imposing 
conditions  upon  the  copying  of  their  works,  which  would,  in 
most  cases,  have  prevented  the  multiplication  of  them  altogether. 


Lect.  IX.  LITERARY  PROPERTY  397 

But  when,  by  the  invention  of  printing,  book-making  became 
a  manufacture,  the  relations  between  the  producer  and  the  con- 
sumer were  changed.  It  is  true,  that  when  once  the  mechani- 
cal facilities  were  provided,  an  edition  could  be  published  at 
what  had  been  the  cost  of  a  single  copy  ;  but  for  this  purpose, 
the  arts  of  type-founding  and  type-setting  must  first  be  acquired 
by  a  long  apprenticeship,  and  a  large  capital  must  be  invested 
in  types  and  presses.  This  capital  and  this  industry  could  be 
secured  from  a  dangerous  competition,  only  by  protective  laws. 
The  protection  originally  designed  for  the  benefit  of  the  capitalist, 
the  printer,  yielded  returns,  which,  first  the  editors  of  classical 
works,  and  finally  authors  of  original  compositions,  were  allowed 
to  share  in  about  that  small  proportion  which,  in  ordinary  cases, 
the  profits  of  the  writer  still  bear  to  those  of  the  publisher ;  and 
hence  the  notion  of  a  right  in  literary  property.  This  has  given 
birth  to  a  new  feature,  if  not  a  new  estate,  in  modern  society  — 
a  class  of  men  who  live  by  literary  production,  a  body  of  pro- 
fessional writers,  whose  motive  for  authorship  consists  mainly  in 
the  pecuniary  rewards  it  yields,  rewards  which  can  be  secured 
to  them  only  by  the  authority  of  laws  recognizing  the  right  of 
property  in  literary  wares,  and  punishing  the  infraction  of  that 
right  as  in  other  cases  of  invasion  of  property.  The  authority 
of  law,  in  all  well-ordered  governments,  carries  with  it  a  moral 
sanction,  and  the  code,  which  establishes  the  legal  right  of  an 
author  to  the  exclusive  use  and  benefit  of  his  intellectual  labours, 
has  created  a  respect  for  those  rights,  that  extends  even  beyond 
the  limits  marked  out  by  the  law. 

That  the  legal  title  of  the  author  is  an  important  ingredient 
in  the  respect  felt  for  his  professional  property  is  proved  by  the 
fact,  that  in  cases  which  the  law  does  not  reach  —  as  in  regard 
to  the  works  of  ancient  or  foreign  writers  unprotected  by  an 
international  copyright  —  the  odium  attached  to  plagiarism  is 
less  strongly  felt ;  and  the  commercial  spirit  of  our  age,  in  this 
as  well  as  in  other  things,  is  much  less  tender  of  the  reputation 
than  of  the  purse. 


398  INVENTION   IN   LITERATURE  Lect.  IX. 

Van  Lennep,  the  most  eminent  living  writer  of  Holland,  in 
some  remarks  at  a  congress  of  authors  and  publishers  held  at 
Brussels,  not  long  since,  to  consider  the  general  question  of 
literary  property,  said:  'For  nearly  forty  years  I  have  lived 
principally  by  robbery  and  theft;'  and  he  justified  his  practice 
by  the  example  of  Virgil,  Dante,  Tasso,  Milton,  Moliere,  Kacine, 
Voltaire,  Schiller,  Vondel,  and  Bilderdijk,  all  of  whom  he  de- 
clared to  be  as  unscrupulous  plunderers  as  himself. 

'WTien,  then,  Chaucer  and  Gower  appropriated  and  national- 
ized the  tales  versified  by  French  poets,  or  by  classic  authors,  they 
felt  that  they  were  only  taking  up  waifs,  or  estrays,  which  had 
been  left  by  the  original  owners  free  to  chance  occupancy,  and 
which  the  Norman  or  Koman  bard  had  himself  probably  come 
into  possession  of  '  by  finding,'  as  the  lawyers  phrase  it.  It  is 
an  etymological  remark  worth  making,  now  that  we  are  upon 
the  subject,  that  the  very  word  invention,  commonly  used  of 
the  origination  of  a  poem  or  a  machine,  radically  means,  not 
creation  of  that  which  is  new,  but  accidentally  coming  upon,  or 
finding,  that  which  is  old. 

And,  in  fact,  how  much  is  there  either  historically  or  psycho- 
logically new  in  what  the  dialect  of  criticism  calls  invention  ? 
Shakespeare,  the  most  original  of  writers,  invented  nothing,  or 
next  to  nothing,  in  the  way  of  plot  or  incident ;  and  if  you  strip 
his  dramas  of  their  artistic  dress  and  moral  element,  the  events 
are  just  what  do  or  may  happen  a  hundred  times  within  the 
observation  of  every  man  of  experience  in  the  world's  affairs. 
For  invention,  in  the  way  of  creation  of  plot,  for  novel  and 
startling  situations  and  combinations,  you  must  go,  not  to 
Shakespeare,  but  to  what  are  called  'sensation'  novels.  There 
you  will  find  abundance  of  incident,  that  not  only  never  did, 
but,  without  an  inversion  of  the  laws  of  humanity,  never  could 
happen ;  while  in  all  genial  literature,  the  mere  events  of  the 
story  can  at  any  time  be  matched  in  the  first  newspaper  you  take 
up.  Just  in  proportion  as  the  words  or  the  works  of  the  per- 
sonages of  the  dialogue  or  the  narrative  are  new  to  human  nature 


Lect.  IX.  INVENTION   IN  LITERATURE  399 

under  the  conditions  supposed,  just  in  proportion  as  they  startle 
or  surprise  the  reader  or  the  spectator,  they  are  false  and  vicious ; 
and  the  necessary  and  consciously  felt  truth  of  them,  as  logical 
results  of  the  character  and  circumstances  of  the  person  depicted, 
is  the  test  of  the  genius  of  the  writer. 

The  ingenious  gentleman  who  manufactured  a  stupendous 
marine  reptile  out  of  the  bones  of  whales  was  certainly  a  great 
inventor ;  but  the  judicious  do  not  rank  him  higher  than  the 
learned  comparative  anatomist  who  demonstrated  that  the 
hydrarchus  was  an  imposture,  or  than  the  renowned  naturalist 
whose  free  choice  has  authorized  America  to  claim  him  as  her 
own,  by  a  better  title  than  the  accident  of  birth,  and  who  is 
content  to  accept  the  works  of  God,  even  as  they  come  from  the 
hands  of  their  Creator. 

So  far  as  Chaucer  was  avowedly,  or  at  least  undisguisedly,  a 
translator,  there  is  of  course  no  question  of  originality;  but  even 
in  this  capacity  he  shows  great  power  of  language,  and  the 
three  or  four  hundred  lines,  which  he  has  here  and  there  inter- 
polated into  his  otherwise  close  translation  of  the  work  of  De 
Lorris,  will  be  at  once  recognized  as  among  the  passages  of  the 
poem  finest  in  sentiment  and  most  beautiful  in  imagery  and 
expression.* 

♦  Chaucer's  ability  as  a  translator  was  known,  and  highly  appreciated,  by  his 
literary  contemporaries  in  France.  Wright,  in  his  curious  collection,  the  Anecdota 
Literaria,  publishes  the  following  complimentary  stanzas  addressed  to  Chaucer  by 
Eustache  Deschamps,  a  French  poet  of  his  own  time : — 

BALLADE  A  GEOFFROI  CHAUCEK,  PAE  EUSTACHE  DESCHAMPS. 

[From  the  Eibliotheque  Koyale,  MS.  7219,  fol.  62,  ro,] 

O  Socrates,  plains  de  philosophic, 

Seneque  en  meurs  et  angles  en  pratique, 

Ovides  grans  en  ta  poeterie, 

Bries  en  parler,  saiges  en  rethorique, 

Aigles  tres  haultz,  qui  par  ta  theorique 

Enlumines  lo  regne  d'Eneas, 

L'isle  aux  geans,  ceulx  de  Bruth,  et  qui  as 

Seme  les  fleurs  et  plante  le  rosier 

Aux  ignorans  de  la  langue  Pandras ; 

Grant  translateur,  noble  Grefiroy  Chaucier. 


400  CHAUCER  AND   THE   ITALIAN  POETS  Lect.  IX. 

It  has  been  thought  strange  that  Chaucer,  who  borrowed  so 
freely  from  French  literature,  should  have  taken  so  little  from 
Italian  sources.  He  is  supposed  to  have  been  twice  in  Italy ;  he 
professes  to  have  learned  the  story  of  patient  Grriselda,  or  the 
Clarke's  Tale,  from  Petrarch,  at  Padua ;  and  he  speaks  of  Dante 
with  reverence,  ■  and  paraphrases  from  the  Inferno  of  that  poet 
the  inscription  over  the  gates  of  the  infernal  regions.  But  his 
writings  do  not  show  much  evidence  of  a  familiarity  with  Italian 
literature,  nor  does  he  appear  to  be  indebted  to  it  for  anything 
more  than  the  story  of  Troilus  and  Creseide — which  is  a  trans- 
lation, or  rather  a  paraphrase,  of  the  Filostrato  of  Boccaccio— 
and  that  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  which   is  taken   from  the 


Tu  es  d'amours  mondains  dieux,  en  Albiej 
Et  de  la  rose,  en  la  terre  angelique, 
Qui  d' Angels  Saxonne  est  puis  fleurie ; 
Angleterre  d'elle  ce  nom  s' applique, 
Le  derrenier  en  I'etliimologique, 
En  bon  Angles  le  liyre  translatas  : 
Et  un  rergier  ou  du  plant  demandas 
De  ceuls  qui  font  pour  eulx  auetoriser, 
N'a  pas  long  temps  que  tu  edifias, 
Grant  translateur,  noble  GefFroj  Chauciei 

A  toy  pour  ce,  de  la  fontaine  Helye 
Eequier  avoir  un  ouvrage  autentique, 
Dont  la  doys  est  du  tout  en  ta  baillie, 
Pour  refrener  d'elle  ma  soif  ethique : 
Qu'en  ma  Gaule  serai  paralitique 
Jusques  a  ce  que  tu  m'abuveras. 
Eustace  sui,  qui  de  mon  plans  aras ; 
Mais  prens  en  gre  les  euyres  d'escolier 
Que,  par  CliiFord,  de  moy  avoir  pourras, 
Grant  translatexir,  noble  Gieflfroi  Chaucier. 

TJEnvoy. 

Poete  liault,  loenge  destinye, 
En  ton  jardin  ne  seroie  qu'ortie  ; 
Considere  ce  que  j'ay  dit  premier, 
Ton  noble  plan,  ta  douce  melodic  ; 
Mais  pour  scavoir,  de  rescrire  te  prie, 
Grant  translateur,  noble  GefiFroy  Chaucier. 


Lect.  IX.  CHAUCER'S  LITERARY  CHRONOLOGY  401 

Teseide  of  the  same  author.  Chaucer's  recension  of  this  latter 
tale  differs  much  in  plan,  arrangement,  and  incident  from  the 
Teseide,  to  which,  as  we  shall  see,  it  is  greatly  superior  in 
imagery  and  sentiment,  though,  perhaps,  not  in  the  conduct 
of  the  narrative. 

Dante  was  too  severe,  Petrarch  too  sentimental,  for  the  cheer- 
ful and  buoyant  spirit  of  Chaucer,  and  it  is  therefore  not  sur- 
prising that  he  should  have  copied  or  imitated  the  lively 
Boccaccio  rather  than  the  greater  but  more  unreal  creations 
of  those  authors. 

Chaucer,  in  fine,  was  a  genuine  product  of  the  union  of 
Saxon  and  Norman  genius,  and  the  first  well-characterized 
specimen  of  the  intellectual  results  of  a  combination,  which 
has  given  to  the  world  a  literature  so  splendid,  and  a  history  so 
noble. 

The  English  is  the  only  Gothic  tribe  ever  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  Komance  culture,  and  at  the  same  time  interfused  with 
southern  blood,  and  consequently  it  is  the  only  common  repre- 
sentative of  the  two  races.  The  civilization  and  letters  of  Grer- 
many  and  Scandinavia  are  either  wholly  dissimilar  to  those  of 
Southern  Europe,  or  they  are  close  imitations.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  social  institutions  and  the  poetry  of  the  Eomance  nations 
are  self-developed,  and  but  slightly  modified  by  Grothic  influ- 
ences. In  England  alone  have  the  best  social,  moral,  and  intel- 
lectual energies  of  both  families  been  brought  to  coincide  in 
direction ;  and  in  English  character  and  English  literature  we 
find,  if  not  all  the  special  excellences  which  distinguish  each 
constituent  of  the  English  nationality,  yet  a  resultant  of  the  two 
forces  superior  in  power  to  either. 

"We  are  not  well  acquainted  with  Chaucer's  literary  chronology, 
but  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  his  translation  of  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose  was  his  first  important  work,  and  the  Canter- 
bury Tales  his  last,  as  it  is  unquestionably  his  greatest. 

The  Roman  de  la  Rose  is  in  two  parts  —  the  commencement, 
written  by  Gruillaume  de  Lorris  about  the  year  1250,  containing 

D  D 


402  Chaucer's  accidence  Lkci".  ix. 

not  far  from  forty-one  hundred  verses,  and  the  sequel  or  con- 
tinuation written  by  Jean  de  Meung,  half  a  century  later,  and 
extending  to  about  nineteen  thousand  verses.  Criticism  upon 
the  literary  merits  of  works  not  belonging  to  English  literature 
would  here  be  out  of  place;  and  in  our  examination  of  Chaucer's 
Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  we  must  confine  ourselves  chiefly  to  his 
ability  as  a.  translator,  though  some  of  his  embellishments  and 
improvements  of  the  original  will  be  found  to  deserve  more 
special  attention. 

The  work  of  De  Lorris  is  translated  entire.  The  continuation 
by  De  Meung  is  much  abridged,  but  I  believe  not  otherwise 
essentially  changed.  The  generally  close  correspondence  be- 
tween the  first  part  of  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  and  the  best 
printed  edition  of  the  work  of  De  Lorris  —  that  of  Meon  — 
affords  a  gratifying  proof  that  the  existing  manuscripts  of  both 
are,  in  the  main,  faithful  transcripts  of  the  respective  authors' 
copies;  for  if  either  had  been  much  altered,  the  coincidence 
between  the  two  could  not  be  so  exact.  We  are,  therefore, 
warranted  in  believing  that  we  have  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose 
very  nearly  as  the  translator  left  it,  in  all  points  except  that  of 
grammatical  inflection. 

In  this  important  particular  there  is  much  uncertainty  and 
confusion,  with  respect  not  only  to  the  dialect  of  the  Romaunt, 
but  to  that  of  all  Chaucer's  works.  The  manuscript  copies  of 
his  writings  in  the  different  public  and  private  libraries  of  Eng- 
land do  not  appear  to  have  been  collated  by  any  competent 
scholar,  and  none  of  the  printed  editions,  except,  perhaps, 
Wright's  Canterbury  Tales,  are  entitled  to  much  confidence  as 
faithful  reproductions  of  the  codices.  Caxton's  second  edition 
has  been  supposed  to  be  of  high  authority,  because  it  professedly 
conforms  to  a  manuscript  which  he  believed  to  be  authentic ; 
but  this  was  a  point  on  which  Caxton  was  by  no  means  quali- 
fied to  pronounce,  and  notwithstanding  his  professions  of  strict 
adherence  to  his  text,  his  avowed  practice  of  reducing  what  he 
calls  the  '  rude  English '  of  early  authors,  to  an  orthographical 


Lect.  IX.  PRINTED   TEXTS   OF   CFAUCER  403 

and  grammatical  standard  of  his  own,  detracts  much  from  the 
value  of  all  his  editions  of  works  of  preceding  centuries. 

There  are  certain  points  of  inflection  in  all  the  works  of 
Chaucer,  on  which  we  are  much  in  the  dark.  The  most  im- 
portant of  these,  both  syntactically,  and  in  reference  to  versifi- 
cation, is  the  grammatical  and  prosodical  value  of  the  final  e. 
Most  generally,  it  seems  to  have  stood  as  the  sign  of  the  plural, 
but  sometimes,  apparently,  of  case,  and  sometimes  even  of 
gender,  in  nouns,  and  of  the  definite  form  in  the  adjective. 
But  the  published  texts  are  not  uniform  and  harmonious  enough 
in  the  use  of  this  letter  to  enable  us  to  form  a  consistent  theory 
of  its  force,  and  to  state  the  rules  which  governed  its  employ- 
ment. There  appears  to  be  little  doubt,  however,  that  it  occurs 
more  frequently  in  the  manuscripts  than  in  the  printed  editions 
It  was  often  obscurely  written,  or  indicated  by  a  mere  mark,^ 
which  later  transcribers  and  printers  have  overlooked,  and  the 
restoration  of  it  is,  in  many  cases,  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
metre  of  lines  which  are  found  in  the  midst  of  passages  generally 
of  exquisite  versification.* 

The  printed  copies  are  very  inaccurate  also  in  discriminating 
between  the  regularly  and  the  irregularly  conjugated  verbs.  In 
modern  times,  not  only  have  many  verbs  originally  irregular 
become  regular  in  conjugation,  but  the  two  systems  are  some- 
times blended.  Thus  the  Anglo-Saxon,  creopan,  to  creep, 
made  the  past  tense  singular,  creap.  But  we  say,  crept,  and 
the  like,  the  t  final  standing  for  ed,  the  usual  ending  of  the 
regular  conjugation,  which  some  grammatical  improver  sup- 
posed to  be  a  necessary  sign  of  the  past  inflection.  The  best 
manuscripts  of  Chaucer  do  not  justify  this  corruption,  though  it 
appears  in  all  the  old  editions. 


*  My  learned  friend,  Professor  Child,  of  Harvard  University,  has  kindly  com- 
municated to  me  many  interesting  observations  on  the  e  final  in  Chaucer,  but,  as 
he  is  still  continuing  his  researches,  I  will  not  anticipate  his  conclusions,  which 
trust  will  soon  be  given  to  the  world  by  himself.     See  Wright's  Notes  on  the 
Eeeve's  Tale,  Anecdota  Literaria,  p.  23  et  seq. 

D  D   2 


404  THE  ROMAUNT  OF  THE  ROSE         Lect.  IX. 

The  translation  of  the  Eoman  de  la  Rose,  in  the  form  we 
possess  it,  is  not,  then,  a  safe  authority  upon  the  accidence  of 
English  at  the  commencement  of  Chaucer's  literary  career; 
but,  from  its  general  fidelity  to  the  original,  it  affords  a  fair 
opportunity  for  comparing  the  relative  power  of  poetical  Ex- 
pression, possessed,  at  that  time,  by  the  two  languages.  English 
had  not  then  attained  to  the  full  compass,  flexibility,  and  grace, 
with  which  Chaucer  himself,  in  his  later  works,  endowed  it. 
Still,  I  believe  that  no  competent  judge  can  examine  the  French 
text  and  its  English  counterpart,  without  coming  to  the  con- 
clusion, that  the  language,  which,  a  generation  or  two  before, 
had  shown  itself,  in  the  hands  of  Eobert  of  Gloucester  and  his 
follower  De  Brunne,  poor,  rude,  and  unpolished,  had  now,  by 
accretion  and  development,  become  so  improved  as  to  be  in  no 
wise  inferior  to  the  original  of  the  Eoman  de  la  Eose,  in  any  of 
the  special  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  a  perfect  poetical 
diction. 

The  metre  is  the  same  in  the  translation  as  in  the  original — 
iambic,  octosyllabic  rhyme  —  but  as  the  e  final  was,  except 
when  followed  by  a  word  beginning  with  /i,  or  with  a  vowel, 
generally  pronounced  in  both  languages,  a  majority  of  the 
lines  have  a  superfluous  or  ninth  syllable  in  the  terminal 
rhyme,  which  thus  becomes  an  amphibrach  instead  of  an  iambus. 
In  this  respect,  however,  no  rule  of  sequence  or  arrangement  is 
followed,  the  alternate  succession  of  masculine  and  feminine, 
or  single  and  double  rhymes,  not  having  then  become  obligatory 
in  P^rench,  as  it  never  did  in  English  verse. 

So  far  as,  with  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  pronunciation 
of  English  in  Chaucer's  time,  we  are  able  to  judge,  the  versi- 
fication of  this  translation,  though  in  general  flowing  and  cor- 
rect, is  less  skilful  than  that  of  the  poet's  later  works ;  and  he 
exhibits  less  facility  in  rhyming  in  the  Eomaunt  than  in  his 
Canterbury  Tales.  Thus,  where  a  double -rhymed  ending  occurs, 
he,  much  more  frequently  than  in  his  original  compositions. 


Lect.  IX.  THE    ROMAUNT   OF   THE    ROSE  405 

makes  use  of  two  words  in  one  line  as  a  consonance  to  a  sino-le 

o 

word  in  another.     Thus : 

1374.       And  many  homely  trees  there  were, 
That  peaches,  coines,  and  apples  here, 
Medlers,  plummes,  peeres,  chesteinis 
Cherise,  of  whiche  many  one  faine  is. 

So  again : 

1382.       With  cipres,  and  with  olivens, 

Of  which  that  nigh  no  plenty  here  is. 


and 


1577.       Againe  the  Sunne  an  hundred  hewis, 

Blew,  yellow,  and  red,  that  fresh  and  new  is. 


But  these  licenses  are  not  common,  and  in  general  both  rhyme 
and  metre  are  unexceptionable. 

To  give  an  extended  comparison  between  the  diction  of  the 
French  poet  and  his  English  translator  is  here  impossible,  and 
I  must  content  myself  with  a  specimen  or  two,  which  will  serve 
to  direct  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the  mode  in  which 
Chaucer  has  embellished  and  improved  upon  his  original.  This 
he  effects  by  the  use  of  more  expressive  words,  by  the  addition 
of  picturesque  features  to  the  imagery,  and  by  the  greater  con- 
densation of  style  which  the  structure  of  English  sometimes 
allows. 

Verses  119 — 122  of  the  original  run  thus: — 

Si  vi  tot  covert  et  pave 
Le  fons  de  I'iave  de  gravele; 
La  praerie  grant  et  bele 
Tres  au  pie  de  I'iave  batoit. 

This  Chaucer  renders,  in  four  and  a  half  verses,  thus : — 

Tho'  saw  I  wele 
The  bottome  y-paved  everidele 
With  gravel,  full  of  stones  shene; 
The  meadowes  softe,  sote  and  grene, 
Beet  right  upon  the  water  side. 


406  THE  ROMAUNT  OF  THE  ROSE         Lect.  IX. 

An  explanatory  remark  is  sometimes  introduced  by  the 
translator,  as  in  the  comparison  of  the  song  of  the  birds  in  the 
rose-garden  to  the  chant  of  the  sirens.     De  Lorris  has  said, 

672.       Tant  estoit  cil  clians  dous  et  biaus, 

Qu'il  ne  sembloit  pas  chans  d'oisiaus, 

Ains  le  peust  Ten  aesmer 

A  chant  de  seraines  de  mer, 

Qui,  par  lor  vois  qu'eles  ont  saines 

Et  series,*  ont  non  seraines. 

In  the  translation  thus : 

Such  swete  song  was  hem  emong, 
That  me  thought  it  no  birdes  song, 
^  But  it  was  wonder  like  to  bee 
Song  of  meremaidens  of  the  see, 
That,  for  hir  singen  is  so  clere. 
Though  we  meremaidens  clepe  hem  here 
In  English,  as  is  our  usaunce. 
Men  clepe  hem  sereins  in  France. 

But  Chaucer's  amplifications  of  the  text  of  De  Lorris  are  not 
numerous,  nor,  with  a  single  exception,  of  much  importance. 
The  addition,  in  the  case  I  refer  to,  was  noticed  in  Lecture  XL 
of  my  First  Series,  and  I  here  recur  to  it,  not  only  for  its  in- 
herent interest,  as  the  expression  of  a  generous  and  truly  English 
sentiment,  of  which  there  is  no  trace  in  the  original,  but,  more 
especially,  because,  in  a  later  work,  the  poet  repeats,  expands, 
and  enforces  the  sentiment,  in  a  tone  which  plainly  indicates  that 
he  had  been  censured  for  expressing  it,  and  was  seizing  an  occasion 
for  a  spirited  defence  of  his  principles.  The  connection  between 
the  two  passages  renders  it  necessary  to  re-examine  the  first. 

The  word  vilain  denoted  primarily  a  man  of  rustic  and 
plebeian  birth,  and  afterwards,  from  the  general  disposition  of 
the  high-born  and  the  rich  to  ascribe  base  qualities  to  men  of 
humble  origin,  it  came  to  signify,  also,  ignoble  in  spirit,  mean 

*  Roquefort  explains  this  "word:  Joli,  agreable,  doux,  melodieux,  paisible, 
modere,  tranqiiille,  lent,  grave, —  rather  a  formidable  list  of  meanings  to  be 
deduced  from  the  Latin  adverb,  sere,  late,  to  which  he  refers  serie. 


Lect.  IX.  THE   EOMAUNT   OF   THE   ROSE  407 

and  vulgar.  At  a  later  period,  the  word  acquired  in  English 
even  a  more  offensive  moral  meaning ;  but  in  Chaucer's  time, 
though  employed  occasionally  by  the  poet  himself  in  the  same 
metaphorical  way  as  in  French,  it  was  not  habitually  used  in 
any  other  than  the  feudal  sense  of  a  tenant,  or  a  serf  bound  to 
the  soil  he  tilled,  or  in  the  more  general  acceptation  of  a  plebeian, 
low-born  person.*  De  Lorris  had  introduced  this  word  and  its 
derivative,  vilonnie,  into  a  passage,  v.  2086,  which  Chaucer 
translates  thus : — 

2175.       *  Villanie  at  the  beginning, 

*  I  woll,'  sayd  Love,  '  over  all  thing 
Thou  leave,  if  thou  wolt  ne  be 
False,  and  trespace  ayenst  me : 
I  curse  and  blame  generally 
All  hem  that  loven  villany. 
For  villanie  maketh  villeine, 
And  by  his  deeds  a  chorle  is  seine. 
These  villaines  arne  without  pitie, 
Friendship,  love,  and  all  bountie. 
I  nill  receive  unto  my  servise 
Hem  that  ben  villaines  of  emprise.' 

Villanie  (vilonnie)  as  first  used  in  this  extract  is  employed  in 
a  moral  sense,  but  in  the  couplet : 

For  villanie  maketh  villeine, 
And  by  his  deeds  a  chorle  is  seine, 

villeine^  as  plainly  appears  by  the  original, 

Vilonnie  fait  li  vilains, 

*  This  latter  was  the  common  meaning  long  after  Chaucer's  time,  and  even  as 
late  as  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Fisher  thus  uses  it,  in  his  memo- 
rial sermon  on  the  Countess  of  Eichmond  and  Derby,  mother  of  Henry  VII., 
preached  in  1509.  Speaking  of  the  prayer  of  Christ  for  the  forgiveness  of  his 
enemies,  and  his  expected  intercession  for  the  departed  countess,  he  says : — '  Yf 
in  this  mortall  Body  he  prayed  and  asked  forgyveness  for  his  Enemyes  that  cruci- 
fyed  hym  *  ^-  ^'  and  yet  nevertheless  he  opteyned  his  petycion  for  them  ;  moche 
rather  it  is  to  suppose,  that  he  shall  opteyne  his  askynge  for  '*  *  *  this  noble  princes 
than  for  his  mortal  Enemyes,  which  were  many  and  but  vylayncs.'  BosA^le's 
reprint,  1708,  p.  24 :  Here  the  word  means  persons  of  low  condition,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  rank  of  the  deceased  '  noble  princess.' 


408  THE   EOMAUNT   OF  THE   IIOSE  Lect.  IX. 

is  the  nominative  to  maJteth,  and  villanie  is  its  objective. 
Hence  tlie  meaning  is :  villains,  or  persons  of  plebeian  rank, 
commit  villany  or  base  actions,  or,  in  other  words,  those  who 
are  villains  in  a  legal  sense  are  especially  prone  to  be  guilty  of 
the  meannesses  which  were  morally  stigmatized  as  villany. 
Against  this  opinion,  Chaucer's  noble  spirit,  though  he  was  of 
gentle  birth,  compelled  him  to  protest,  and  he  introduced  into 
his  translation  this  disclaimer : 

But  understond  in  thine  entent, 

That  this  is  not  mine  entendement, 

To  clepe  no  wight  in  no  ages 

Onely  gentle  for  his  linages : 

But  whoso  is  vertuous, 

And  in  his  port  not  outrageous, 

When  such  one  thou  seest  thee  befome, 

Though  he  be  not  gentle  borne, 

Than  maiest  well  seine  this  in  sooth, 

That  he  is  gentle,  because  he  doth 

As  longeth  to  a  gentleman : 

Of  hem  none  other  deme  I  can, 

For  certainly  withouten  dreede 

A  chorle  is  demed  by  his  deede. 

Of  hye  or  lowe,  as  ye  may  see, 

Or  of  what  kinred  that  he  bee.* 

Although  the  original  harshness  of  the  feudal  relation  be- 
tween the  Norman  lord  and  the  Saxon  churl  had  been  some- 
what softened  by  three  centuries  of  common  interest  and  reci- 
procal dependence  and  helpfulness,  yet  such  sentiments  as  these 
were  of  too  dangerous  a  tendency  to  be  well  received  by  the 
higher  classes,  in  an  age  when  so  many  popular  apostles  of 
liberty,  in  France  and  in  England,  were  preaching  the  natural 
equality  of  man.  Hence  Chaucer  was  uudoubtedly  blamed  for 
unnecessarily  proclaiming  this  disorganising  doctrine,  in  the 
translation  of  a  work  which  professed  no  such  social  heresy. 

But  the  poet  did  not  shrink  from  the  position  he  had  taken, 

*  See  Longer  Notes  and  Illustrations,  III.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


I 


Lect.  IX.  THE   ROMAUNT   OF  THE   ROSE  409 

and  in  the  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale  he  again  advanced  and  main- 
tained the  opinion,  that  the  true  test  of  gentility  is  nobleness 
of  life  and  courtesy  of  manner,  and  not  ancestral  rank.  This 
position  is  enforced  at  much  length,  the  argument  extending  to 
a  hundred  verses,  and  being  conducted  with  a  spirit  which  gives 
it  altogether  the  air  of  a  reply  to  a  personal  attack.  It  is  as 
follows: — 

But  for  ye  speken  of  swiche  gentilesse, 
As  is  descendit  out  of  old  richesse, 
Therefor  schuld  ye  ben  holden  gentil  men ; 
Swiche  arrogaunce  is  not  worth  an  hen. 
Lok  who  that  is  most  vertuous  alway, 
Priv6  and  pert,  and  most  entendith  ay 
To  do  the  gentil  dedes  that  he  can, 
Tak  him  for  the  grettest  gentil  man. 
Crist,  wol  we  clayme  of  him  our  gentilesse, 
Nought  of  oure  eldres  for  her  olde  richesse. 
For  though  thay  give  us  al  her  heritage, 
For  which  we  clayme  to  be  of  high  parage, 
Yit  may  thay  not  biquethe,  for  no  thing, 
To  noon  of  us,  so  vertuous  lyvyng, 
That  made  hem  gentil  men  y-callid  be, 
And  bad  us  folwe  hem  in  such  degre. 
Wei  can  the  wyse  poet  of  Florence, 
That  hatte  Daunt,  speke  of  this  sentence ; 
Lo,  in  such  maner  of  rym  is  Dauntes  tale  :  * 

*  I  have  not  been  able  to  identify  the  precise  passage  in  Dante  referred  to  by 
Chaucer,  but  the  Italian  poet  expresses  very  similar  sentiments  in  the  Canzone 
prefixed  to  the  fourth  Trattato  in  the  Convito :  — 

E  poiche  tempo  mi  par  d'  aspettare, 

Diporro  giu  lo  mio  soave  stile, 

Ch'  io  ho  tenuto  nel  trattar  d'  Amore, 

E  diro  del  valore 

Per  lo  qual  veramente  e  1'  uom  gentile, 

Con  riraa  aspra  e  sottile, 

Eiprovando  il  giudicio  falso  e  \i\q 

Di  que',  che  voglion  che  di  gentilezza 

Sia  principio  ricchezza : 

****** 

Ed  k  tanto  durata 


410  THE    EOMAUNT   OF   THE   ROSE  LeCT.  IX. 

Fill  seeld  uprisith  by  his  braunchis  small 

Prowes  of  man,  for  God  of  his  prowesse 

Wol  that  we  claime  of  him  our  gentilesse : 

For  of  our  auncestres  we  no  thing  clayme 

But  temporal  thing,  that  men  may  hurt  and  mayme. 

Ek  every  wight  wot  this  as  well  as  I, 

If  gentiles  were  plaunted  naturelly 

Unto  a  certayn  lignage  doun  the  line, 

Prive  ne  apert,  thay  wolde  never  fine 

To  done  of  gentilesce  the  fair  office. 

They  might  nought  doon  no  vileny  or  vice. 

The  poet  manifestly  holds  that  gentility  is  not  a  generic  dis- 
tinction, and  at  the  same  time  tacitly  gives  in  his  adhesion  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  perpetuity  of  species,  just  now  under  dis- 
cussion, in  a  class  of  philosophers  who  were  not  dreamed  of  by 
Chaucer  as  likely  to  debate  that  question  five  centuries  after  his 
age.     He  proceeds :  — 


La  cosi  falsa  opinion  tra  nui, 
Che  r  uom  chiama  colui 
Uomo  gentil,  che  puo  dicere  :  Tfui 
Nipote  o  figlio  di  cotal  valente, 
Benche  sia  da  niente : 

*  *  *  »  * 

Ch6  le  divizie,  siceome  si  crede, 
Non  posson  gentilezza  dar,  ne  torre ; 
Perocchfe  vili  son  di  lor  natura. 

*  *  ^^  *  * 

E  gentilezza  dorunque  virtute, 
Ma  non  virtute  ov'  ella ; 
Siceome  k  cielo  dovunque  la  Stella; 
Ma  cio  non  e  converso. 
***** 

Pero  nessun  si  vanti, 

Dicendo  :  per  ischiatta  io  son  con  lei, 

Ch'elli  son  quasi  Dei 

Que'  c'  han  tal  grazia  fuor  di  tutti  rei; 

Chfe  solo  Iddio  all'  anima  la  dona, 

Che  vede  in  sua  persona 

Perfettamente  star,  sicclie  ad  alquanti 

Lo  seme  di  felicita  s'  accosta, 

Messo  da  Die  nell'  anima  ben  posta. 


Llct.  IX.  TRANSLATION  411 

Tak  fuyr  and  ber  it  in  the  derkest  hous, 
Bitwixe  this  and  the  mount  Caukasous, 
And  let  men  shit  the  dores,  and  go  thenne, 
Yit  wbl  the  fuyr  as  fair  and  lighte  brenne 
As  twenty  tliousand  men  might  it  beholde; 
His  office  naturel  ay  wol  it  holde, 
Up  peril  on  my  lif,  til  that  it  dye. 
Her  may  ye  se  wel,  how  that  genterye 
Is  nought  annexid  to  possessioun, 
Sithins  folk  ne  doon  her  operacioun 
Alway,  as  doth  the  fuyr,  lo,  in  his  kynde. 
For  God  it  wot,  men  may  ful  often  fynde 
A  lordes  sone  do  schame  and  vilonye. 
And  he  that  wol  have  pris  of  his  gentrie, 
For  he  was  boren  of  a  gentil  hous. 
And  had  his  eldres  noble  and  vertuous. 
And  nyl  himselve  doo  no  gentil  dedes, 
Ne  folw  his  gentil  aunceter,  that  deed  is, 
He  is  nought  gentil,  be  he  duk  or  erl  ; 
For  vileyn  synful  deedes  maketh  a  cherl. 
For  gentilnesse  nys  but  renome 
Of  thin  auncestres,  for  her  heigh  bounte, 
Which  is  a  straunge  thing  to  thy  persone ; 
Thy  gentilesce  cometh  fro  God  alloone. 
Than  conith  cure  verray  gentilesse  of  grace, 
It  was  no  thing  biquethe  us  with  oure  place. 
Thinketh  how  nobil,  as  saith  Valerius, 
Was  thilke  TuUius  Hostilius, 
That  out  of  povert  ros  to  high  noblesse. 
Eedith  Senek,  and  redith  eek  Boece, 
Ther  schuln  ye  se  expresse,  that  no  dred  is, 
That  he  is  gentil  that  doth  gentil  dedis. 
And  therfor,  lieve  housbond,  I  conclude, 
Al  were  it  that  myn  auncetres  wer  rude, 
Yit  may  the  highe  God,  and  so  hope  I, 
Graunte  me  grace  to  lyve  vertuously  ; 
Than  am  I  gentil,  whan  that  I  bygynne 
To  lyve  vertuously,  and  weyven  synne. 

The  dialect  of  the   translation  of  the  Eoman  de  la  Eose 
is,  in  general,  more  archaic  than  that  of  Chaucer's  later,  and 


412  TBANSLATION  Lect.  IX. 

especially  his  original  works,  and  these  latter,  which  reach  the 
highest  excellence  of  expression  in  the  Canterbury  Tales,  exhibit 
a  force  and  beauty  of  diction  that  few  succeeding  authors  have 
surpassed. 

Chaucer's  translation  of  the  Romaunt  of  the  Eose,  which 
was  a  work  of  his  earlier  years,  was  perhaps  consciously  de- 
signed as  a  preparation  for  original  poetic  effort.  But  whether 
so  designed  or  not,  he  could  hardly  have  selected  a  better  exer- 
citation  or  school  of  practice,  in  the  use  of  his  mother  tongue 
as  a  medium  of  imaginative  composition. 

The  French  Roman  de  la  Rose  —  or  rather  the  first  part  of 
the  two  poems  which  pass  under  that  name,  but  which  are  by 
dififerent  authors,  and  but  slightly  connected  as  commencement 
and  sequel — was  in  a  style  wholly  new  to  English,  and  its  dialect 
was  richest  in  many  points,  both  of  thought  and  of  expression, 
where  the  poverty  of  English  was  greatest.  A  translation  of  it, 
therefore,  was  a  work  admirably  suited,  in  the  hands  of  a  genial 
artist,  to  the  improvement  of  the  practical  diction  of  English, 
in  the  points  where  it  needed  to  be  reformed  before  it  could 
become  a  fit  vehicle  for  the  conceptions  of  a  truly  original 
poetic  spirit. 

Indeed  it  may  be  said,  as  a  general  truth,  that  one  of  the 
very  best  methods  of  learning  to  express  ourselves  aptly  in  our 
native  language  is  to  habituate  ourselves  to  the  utterance  of 
thoughts  and  the  portrayal  of  images  conceived  by  other  minds, 
and  embodied  in  other  tongues,  and  there  is  perhaps  no  practice, 
by  which  we  can  so  readily  acquire  the  command  of  an  extensive 
vocabulary,  or  give  to  our  personal  dialect  so  great  a  compass, 
flexibility  and  variety  of  expression,  as  by  the  translation  of 
authors  whose  thoughts  run  in  channels  not  familiar  to  our 
native  literature. 

Nor  is  it  that,  in  translation,  we  borrow  either  the  words,  or 
even  the  phraseological  combinations  of  those  from  whom  we 
translate.  This  would  be  but  a  restamping  of  old  coin  without 
effacing  the  foreign  image  and  superscription,  a  slavish  imita- 


Lect.  IX.  Chaucer's  minor  poems  413 

tion  of  the  original,  which  a  man  capable,  or  ambitious  of  be- 
coming capable,  of  well  using  his  own  tongue,  could  not  descend 
to.  But  it  is,  that  when  we  think  another  man's  thoughts  in 
our  own  words,  we  are  forced  out  of  the  familiar  beats  of  our 
own  personal  diction,  and  compelled  sometimes  to  employ 
vocables  and  verbal  combinations,  which,  though  they  may  be 
perfectly  idiomatic,  we  have  not  before  appropriated  and  made 
our  own  by  habitual  use,  sometimes  to  negotiate  new  alliances 
between  vernacular  words,  which,  if  they  never  have  yet  been 
joined  together,  nevertheless  lawfully  and  profitably  may  be.* 

It  is  impossible  here  to  go  into  a  critical  examination  of  the 
numerous  works  of.  Chaucer,  original  and  imitative,  and  the 
space  at  our  command  will  only  enable  us  to  take  a  cursory 
view  of  some  of  the  more  important  of  his  remaining  poems. 
Of  the  former  class,  one  of  the  best  known  is  the  Troilus  and 
Creseide,  which  is  founded  on  the  Filostrato  of  Boccaccio,  and 
in  part  directly  translated  from  that  author.  The  additions  to 
the  Italian  are  extensive,  important,  and  probably  mainly 
original,  though  certainly,  in  part,  derived  from  French  writers. 
Chaucer  himself  makes  no  mention  of  Boccaccio,  but  professes 
to  derive  the  incidents  of  the  story  from  Lollius,  a  Latin  author ; 
but  no  Latin  original  is  known,  nor  have  the  longer  additions 
been  traced  to  any  other  source.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the 
poem  is  essentially  improved  by  the  changes  of  the  translator, 
though,  in  some  passages,  great  skill  in  the  use  of  words  is 
exhibited,  and  the  native  humour  of  Chaucer  pervades  many 
portions  of  the  story,  which,  in  the  hands  of  Boccaccio,  were 
of  a  graver  cast ;  but,  upon  the  whole,  the  merit  of  Chaucer's 

*  Maister  Cheekes  iudgement  was  great  in  translating  out  of  one  tongue  into  an 
otlier,  and  better  skill  he  had  in  our  English  speach  to  iudge  of  the  Phrases  and 
properties  of  wordes,  and  to  diuide  sentences,  than  any  else  had  that  I  haue 
knowne.  And  often  he  woulde  englyshe  his  matters  out  of  the  Latine  or  Greeke 
vpon  the  sodeyne,  by  looking  of  the  booke  onely  without  reading  or  construing  at 
all:  An  vsage  right  worthie  and  vcrie  profitable  for  all  men,  as  well  for  the  vnder- 
standing  of  the  booke,  as  also  for  the  aptnesse  of  framing  the  Authors  meaning 
and  bettering  thereby  their  iudgement,  and  therewithall  perfiting  their  tongue  and 
Ttterance  of  speach. — Epistle  to  Wilson's  Translation  of  Demosthenes,   London :  1570. 


414  THE  FLOWER  AND  THE  LEAF         Lect.  IX. 

contributions  to  the  original  tale  is  not  such  as,  in  a  brief  and 
general  view  of  his  poetical  and  philological  character,  to  re- 
pay an  analysis. 

The  exquisite  poem,  the  Flower  and  the  Leaf,  is,  I  am  afraid, 
better  known  by  Dryden's  modernization  of  it  than  by  the  origi- 
nal text.  It  first  appeared  in  1597,  and  its  authenticity  has  been 
suspected,  but  the  internal  evidence  is  almost  decisive  in  its 
favour.  Chaucer  himself^  in  the  Legend  of  Good  Women,  ex- 
pressly alludes  to  the  subject,  as  one  on  which  he  had  written,  and 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  poem  in  question  is  his.  Parts 
of  it  have  been  shown  to  be  imitations  or  translations  from  the 
French,  but  these  constitute  an  inconsiderable  proportion  of  the 
work,  and  it  must  be  regarded  as  among  the  most  truly  original, 
as  it  certainly  is  one  of  the  finest,  of  Chaucer  productions.  Indeed 
it  may  be  said,  with  respect  to  many  of  the  poet's  alleged  obli- 
gations to  Komance  authors,  the  evidence  of  which  has  been 
industriously  collected  by  Sandras  and  others,  that  the  passages 
cited  in  proof  of  the  theory  that  our  author  was  little  better  than 
a  translator,  are,  for  the  most  part,  mere  commonplaces,  which 
are  found  in  all  literatures,  and  the  true  origin  of  which  dates 
so  far  back  that  no  Eomance  author,  ancient  or  modern,  can 
fairly  be  supposed  to  have  first  expressed  them. 

The  general  plan  of  the  Flower  and  the  Leaf  is  well  enough, 
though  somewhat  quaintly,  stated  by  the  first  editor : 

A  gentlewoman,  out  of  an  arbonr  in  a  grove,  seetli  a  great  companie 
of  knights  and  ladies  in  a  daunce  upon  the  greene  grasse :  the  which 
being  ended,  they  all  kneele  downe,  and  do  honour  to  the  daisie,  some 
to  the  flower,  and  some  to  the  leafe.  Afterward  this  gentlewoman 
learneth  by  one  of  these  ladies  the  meaning  hereof,  which  is  this : 
They  which  honour  the  flower,  a  thing  fading  with  every  blast,  are 
such  as  looke  after  beautie  and  worldly  pleasure.  But  they  that 
honour  the  leafe,  which  abideth  with  the  root,  notwithstanding  the 
frosts  and  winter  stormes,  are  they  which  follow  vertue  and  during 
qualities,  without  regard  of  worldly  respects. 

One  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  this  poem  is  the 


Lfxt.  IX.  Chaucer's  sympathy  with  nature  415 

sympathy  it  manifests  with  nature.  Some  tokens  of  this  feeling 
are  discoverable  in  Piers  Ploughman,  but  it  is  first  fully  displayed 
by  Chaucer.  The  same  sensibility  to  the  charms  of  rural  scenery 
and  landscape  beauty  is  indeed  shown  elsewhere  by  our  author, 
but  perhaps  nowhere  in  so  high  a  degree.  This  feature  of  the 
poem  renders  it  probable  that  it  is  one  of  Chaucer's  later  works ; 
for  the  perception  of  landscape  beauty  depends  upon  a  long 
training  of  the  eye,  which  is  hardly  perfected  until  a  somewhat 
advanced  period  of  life.  In  the  hey-day  of  youth,  we  do  not 
see  God  in  his  works,  and  the  increased  enjoyment  of  rural 
scenery  is  one  of  the  compensations  reserved  by  Providence  for 
the  sober  age  of  those  who  have  so  familiarized  themselves  with 
the  ways  of  Nature  as  to  understand  some  of  the  many  voices  in 
which  she  speaks  to  her  children.* 

But  the  love  of  nature,  as  exhibited  in  this  poem,  is  rather  a 
matter  of  feeling  than  of  intelligent  appreciation  or  of  refined 
taste ;  for  the  description  of  the  grove  applies  to  the  clipped  and 

*  I  venture  here  to  quote  a  passage  from  a  discourse  of  my  own,  delivered  and 
published  in  1847  :— 

'  The  age  of  the  wise  man  has  another  compensation.  It  has  been  wisely  ordered, 
that  the  sense  of  material  beauty  in  the  myriad  forms  of  spontaneous  nature  and 
formative  art,  is  the  last  developed  of  all  the  powers  of  sensuous  perception.  It 
cannot  arrive  at  its  full  perfection  until  the  abatement  of  the  "natural  force" 
allows  to  the  pure  intelligence  its  due  superiority  over  the  physical  energies,  and 
the  sense  to  which  the  impressions  of  visible  beauty  are  addressed  has  been  refined 
and  spiritualized  by  long,  and  perhaps  unconscious,  jesthetical  cultivation.  "We  say 
unconscious  cultivation,  for  in  this  school  of  life  our  great  teacher  often  disguises 
her  lessons.  Of  all  our  organs,  the  eye  is  the  most  susceptible  of  culture,  and  it 
is  the  one  for  whose  involuntary  training  Nature  has  made  the  largest  provision 
Untaught,  newborn  vision  distinguishes  but  outline  and  colour,  and  it  is  long  obser- 
vation, alone,  that  gives  the  perception  of  the  relief  which  springs  from  the  dis- 
tribution of  light  and  shade,  the  notions  of  distance  and  relative  position,  and  the 
estimate  of  comparative  magnitudes.  Thus  far,  unreflecting  experience  carries 
her  pupil.  But  the  ethereal  perception  of  beauty  is  a  product  of  the  period  when 
strengthening  intellect  has  acquired  its  full  dominion  over  mortified  passion,  the 
superadded  fruit  of  moral  culture,  and  it  attains  not  its  ripeness,  save  under  the 
rays  of  an  autumnal  sun.  Nature  has  thus  reserved  for  the  sober  eye  of  age  the 
most  intelligent  appreciation,  and  the  most  exquisite  enjoj^ment,  of  the  choicest  of 
her  sensuous  gifts,  and  the  evening  of  the  scholar  who  has  made  his  life  a  dis- 
cipline is  cheered  by  the  most  ennobling  contemplations  of  the  world  of  intellect, 
and  gilded  with  the  most  exalted  pleasures  of  the  world  of  sense.' 


416-  THE  FLOWER  AND  THE  LEAP         Lect.  IX. 

trimmed  artificial  plantation,  and  not  to  the  wild  and  free  luxu- 
riance of  forest  growth.  Chaucer  here  unfortunately  followed 
his  literary  reminiscences,  instead  of  trusting  to  his  own  instincts 
and  his  taste ;  for  he  is  borrowing  from  a  French  poet  when  he 
speaks  of  the  '  okes  great,'  which  grew  *  streight  as  a  line,'  and 
at  equal  distances  from  each  other,*  and  of  the  '  hegge,' — 

Wrethen  in  fere  so  well  and  cunningly, 

That  every  branch  and  leafe  grew  by  mesure, 

Plaine  as  a  bord,  of  an  height  by  and  by. 

But  this  description  of  the  turf  must  have  been  original,  for 
it  is  in  England  that  one  oftenest  finds  ; 

The  grene  gras 
So  small,  so  thicke,  so  short,  so  fresh  of  lieAV, 
That  most  Hke  unto  green  wool  wot  I  it  was. 

I  believe  no  old  manuscript  of  the  Flower  and  the  Leaf  is 
known  to  be  extant.  This  is  much  to  be  regretted,  because 
Speght's  edition  is  evidently  exceedingly  corrupt,  and  the  versi- 
fication, which  seems  to  have  been  very  polished  and  mellifluous, 
is  much  impaired  by  the  inaccuracy  of  the  text. 

*  Dans  le  Dit  du  Lyon  (de  Gr.  Machault),  les  arbres  de  I'ile  ou  aborde  le  po^te, 
sont  tons  de  meme  hauteur,  et  plantes  a  egale  distance ;  genre  de  paysage  deja 
decrit  par  Gr.  de  Lorris  et  qui  charmait  les  anciens  Bretons. 

Li  vergiers  etoit  eompassez, 
Car  d' arbres  y  avoit  assez, 
Mais  de  groissour  et  de  liautesse 
Furent  pareil,  et  par  noblesse 
Plante  si,  que  nulz  ne  savoit 
Com  plus  de  I'un  a  I'autre  avoit. 

Sandras,  Etude  sur  Chaucer,  p.  100. 

In  the  translation  of  Owen,  or  the  Lady  of  the  Fountain,  by  Villemarque,  is 
this  passage :  "  Apres  avoir  err6  longtemps,  j'arrivai  dans  la  plus  belle  vallee  du 
monde;  la  s'elevaient  des  arbres,  tous  de  meme  hauteur;"  and  in  a  note,  two 
similar  passages  from  the  Myvyrian  and  the  Mabinogion  are  cited.— Villemarque, 
Les  Romans  de  la  Table  Ronde,  pp.  181,  228.  This  seems  to  indicate  a  taste 
generated,  or  rather  depraved,  by  a  too  artificial  civilization,  such  as  we  can  hardly 
suppose  to  have  existed  in  any  early  Celtic  nation. 


I 


Lect.  IX.  CANTERBURY   TALES  417 

CLaucer's  greatest  work,  that  on  which  his  claim  to  be  ranked 
among  the  first  ornaments  of  modern  literature  must  principally 
rest,  is  his  Canterbury  Tales.  This  is  a  collection  of  stories  re- 
lated by  the  members  of  a  company  of  pilgrims  as  they  rode 
together  to  worship  and  pay  their  vows  at  the  shrine  of  '  the 
holy  blisful  martir,'  St.  Thomas  a  Becket. 

The  host  of  an  inn,  the  Tabard,  at  South wark — where  the 
pilgrims,  twenty-nine  in  number,  accidentally  meet  on  their 
way  to  Canterbury,  and  pass  the  night — joins  their  company, 
and  acts  as  the  presiding  spirit  of  the  party.  It  is  agreed  that 
each  pilgrim  shall  tell  at  least  one  tale — for  there  is  some  con- 
fusion about  the  number  —  on  the  journey  to  Canterbury,  and 
another  on  the  return ;  but  the  whole  number  of  stories  is 
twenty-four  only,  Chaucer  having  died  before  the  work  was 
completed.  After  a  brief  introduction,  filled  with  the  most 
cheerful  images  of  spring,  the  season  of  the  pilgrimage,  the  poet 
commences  the  narrative  with  a  description  of  the  person  and 
the  character  of  each  member  of  the  party.  This  description 
extends  to  about  seven  hundred  lines,  and,  of  course,  affords 
space  for  a  very  spirited  and  graphic  portrayal  of  the  physical 
aspect,  and  an  outline  of  the  moral  features,  of  each.  This 
latter  part  of  the  description  is  generally  more  rapidly 
sketched,  because  it  was  a  part  of  the  author's  plan  to  allow  his 
personages  to  bring  out  their  special  traits  of  character,  and 
thus  to  depict  and  individualize  themselves,  in  the  inter- 
ludes between  the  tales.  The  selection  of  the  pilgrims  is  evi- 
dently made  with  reference  to  this  object  of  developement  in 
action,  and  therefore  constitutes  an  essential  feature  of  the 
plot.  We  have  persons  of  all  the  ranks  not  too  far  removed 
from  each  other  by  artificial*  distinctions,  to  be  supposed 
capable  of  associating  upon  that  footing  of  temporary  equality, 
which  is  the  law  of  good  fellowship,  among  travellers  bound  on 
the  same  journey  and  accidentally  brought  together.  All  the 
great  classes  of  English  humanity  are  thus  represented,  and 
opportunity  is  given  for  the  display  of  the  harmonies  and  the 

£  £ 


418 


CANTERBURY   TALES 


LEcr.  IX. 


jealousies  which  now  united,  now  divided  the  interests  of  dif- 
ferent orders  and  different  vocations  in  the  commonwealth. 
The  clerical  pilgrims,  it  will  be  observed,  are  proportionately 
very  numerous.  The  exposure  of  the  corruptions  of  the  church 
was  doubtless  a  leading  aim  with  the  poet,  and  if  the  whole 
series,  which  was  designed  to  extend  to  at  least  fifty-eight  tales, 
had  been  completed,  the  criminations  and  recriminations  of  the 
jealous  ecclesiastics  would  have  exhibited  the  whole  profession 
in  an  unenviable  light.  But  Chaucer  could  be  just  as  well  as 
severe.  His  portrait  of  the  prioress,  though  it  does  not  spare 
the  affectations  of  the  lady,  is  complimentary ;  and  his  '  good 
man  of  religion,'  the  '  pore  Persoun  of  a  toun,'  of  whom  it  is 
said  that — 

Cristes  lore,  and  his  apostles  twelve, 

He  taught,  and  ferst  he  folwed  it  himselve, 

has  been  hundreds  of  times  quoted  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
pictures  of  charity,  humility,  and  generous,  conscientious,  intel- 
ligent devotion  to  the  duties  of  the  clerical  calling,  which  can 
be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  Eno-lish  literature. 

None  of  these  sketches,  I  believe,  has  ever  been  traced  to  a 
foreign  source,  and  they  are  so  thoroughly  national,  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  suppose  that  any  imagination  but  that  of  an 
Englishman  could  have  conceived  them.  In  the  first  introduc- 
tion of  the  individuals  described  in  the  prologues  to  the  several 
stories,  and  in  the  dialogues  which  occur  at  the  pauses  between 
the  tales,  wherever,  in  short,  the  narrators  appear  in  their  own 
persons,  the  characters  are  as  well  marked  and  discriminated, 
and  as  harmonious  and  consistent  in  action,  as  in  the  best 
comedies  of  modern  times.  Although,  therefore,  there  is,  in 
the  plan  of  the  composition,  nothing  of  technical  dramatic  form 
or  incident,  yet  the  admirable  conception  of  character,  the  con- 
summate skill  with  which  each  is  sustained  and  developed,  and 
the  nature,  life,  and  spirit  of  the  dialogue,  abundantly  prove, 
that  if  the  drama  had  been  known  in  Chaucer's  time  as  a 


Lect.  IX.  CANTERBURY   TALES  419 

branch  of  living  literature,  he  might  have  attained  to  as  high 
excellence  in  comedy  as  any  English  or  Continental  writer. 

The  story  of  a  comedy  is  but  a  contrivance  to  bring  the 
characters  into  contact  and  relation  with  each  other,  and  the 
invention  of  a  suitable  plot  is  a  matter  altogether  too  simple  to 
have  created  the  slightest  difficulty  to  a  mind  like  Chaucer's. 
He  is  essentially  a  dramatist,  and  if  his  great  work  does  not 
appear  in  the  conventional  dramatic  form,  it  is  an  accident  of 
the  time,  and  by  no  means  proves  a  want  of  power  of  original 
conception  or  of  artistic  skill  in  the  author. 

This  is  a  point  of  interest  in  the  history  of  modern  literature, 
because  it  is  probably  the  first  instance  of  the  exhibition  of 
unquestionable  dramatic  genius  in  either  the  Grothic  or  the 
Romance  languages.  I  do  not  mean  that  there  had  previously 
existed,  in  modern  Europe,  nothing  like  histrionic  representa- 
tion of  real  or  imaginary  events  ;  but  neither  the  Decameron  of 
Boccaccio,  to  which  the  Canterbury  Tales  have  been  compared, 
nor  any  of  the  Mysteries  and  Moralities,  or  other  imaginative 
works  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  several  personages  are 
introduced,  show  any  such  power  of  conceiving  and  sustaining 
individual  character,  as  to  prove  that  its  author  could  have  fur- 
nished the  personnel  of  a  respectable  play.  Chaucer,  therefore, 
may  fairly  be  said  to  be  not  only  the  earliest  dramatic  genius  of 
modern  Europe,  but  to  have  been  a  dramatist  before  that  which 
is  technically  known  as  the  existing  drama  was  invented.* 

The  tales  related  by  the  pilgrims  are  as  various  as  the  cha- 
racters of  the  narrators,  grave,  gay,  pathetic,  humorous,  moral, 
licentious,  chivalric  and  vulgar.  Few  of  the  stories  —  perhaps 
none  of  them  —  are  original  in  invention,  and  some  are  little 
more  than  close  translations  from  the  Latin  or  the  French ; 


*  The  second  volume  of  the  Reliquiae  Antiquge  of  "Wright  and  Halliwell  contains 
a  sermon  written  in  Chaucer's  own  time  against  '  Miracle  Plays.'  It  is  of  con- 
siderable interest,  both  from  its  subject,  and  as  a  philological  monument,  and  I 
subjoin  to  this  lecttire  copious  extracts  from  it.  See  Longer  Notes  and  Illustra- 
tions, IV. 

£  E    2 


420  THE   NONNE   PRESTES   TALE  Lect.  IX. 

but  most,  especially  those  of  a  gayer  cast,  are  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  Chaucer's  spirit  and  with  English  national  humour ; 
they  have  been  animated  with  a  new  life,  and  all  that  constitutes 
their  real  literary  value  is  entirely  the  poet's  own. 

It  is  of  course  impossible  to  give  an  analysis  of  any  number 
of  these  tales,  and  nothing  but  the  perusal  of  them  can  convey 
to  the  student  the  least  idea  of  their  extraordinary  merit. 

There  are,  however,  besides  the  general  features  to  which  I 
have  alluded,  some  traits  which  remarkably  distinguish  all  the 
tales  —  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three  professedly  didactic 
in  character  —  from  most  of  Chaucer's  imitative  works.  They 
are  pervaded  with  an  eminently  practical,  life-like  tone,  and  a 
pithy  sententiousness  which,  by  the  exceeding  appositeness  of 
the  sentiment  to  the  circumstances  detailed,  is  strikingly  con- 
trasted with  the  moral  platitudes  and  exhausted  commonplaces 
of  the  French  poets  he  so  often  copies,  and  still  more  strongly  dis- 
tinguished from  the  ethical  lessons  with  which  contemporaneous 
writers  so  freely  sprinkle  their  pages.  English  morality  has 
generally  been  ethics  in  action,  not  in  theory  or  profession,  and 
Chaucer  modified  most  of  his  Canterbury  Tales  in  accordance 
with  this  trait  of  the  national  character. 

The  tale  which  is  most  unmistakably  marked  with  the 
peculiarities  of  Chaucer's  genius,  and  is  therefore  the  most 
characteristic  of  the  series,  is  the  Nonne  Prestes  Tale.  This  is 
a  story  of  the  carrying  off  of  a  cock  by  a  fox,  and  the  escape  of 
the  fowl  from  the  devourer  through  the  folly  of  Eeynard  in 
opening  his  mouth  to  mock  his  pursuers,  in  compliance  with  the 
advice  of  his  prey.  These  mere  incidents  are  certainly  not  of 
Chaucer's  invention,  and  the  naked  plan  of  the  tale  has  been 
thought  to  be  borrowed  from  a  French  fable  of  about  forty 
lines,  found  in  the  poems  of  Marie  of  France  ;  but  Chaucer  has 
extended  it  to  more  than  six  hundred  verses,  the  part  thus 
added  consisting  chiefly  of  a  dialogue  —  for,  '  at  thilke  tyme,' 
'Bestis  and  briddes  could  speke  and  synge' — on  the  warnings 
conveyed  by  visions,  between  the  cock,  who  had  been  terrified 


Lect.  IX.  THE   NONNE   PRESTES   TALE  42^1 

by  a  dream,  and  the  pride  of  Ms  harem,  *fayre  damysel 
Pertilote,'  whom  he  had  waked  by  snoring  in  the  agonies  of  his 
nightmare.  In  this  discussion  Partlet  assails  Chanticleer  with 
both  ridicule  and  argument,  trying  half  to  shame  and  half  to 
reason  him  out  of  his  unmanly  fears :  — 

'  Away ! '  quod  sclie,  *  fy  on  yow,  herteles ! 

Alias ! '  quod  sche, '  for  by  that  God  above  ! 

Now  have  ye  lost  myn  hert,  and  al  my  love ; 

I  can  nought  love  a  coward,  by  my  feith. 

For  certis,  what  so  eny  womman  seith, 

We  alle  desiren,  if  it  mighte  be, 

To  have  housbondes,  hardy,  riche,  and  fre. 

And  secre  and  no  nygard,  ne  no  fool, 

Ne  him  that  is  agast  of  every  tool, 

Ne  noon  avaunter,  by  that  God  above ! 

How  dorst  ye  sayn,  for  schame!  unto  your  love, 

That  any  thing  might  make  yow  aiFerd  ? 

Have  ye  no  mannes  hert,  and  han  a  herd  ?  ' 

She  ascribes  his  dream  to  '  replecciouns,'  quotes  '  Catoun, 
which  that  was  so  wise  a  man,'  as  saying,  '  ne  do  no  force  of 
dremes,'  and  recommends  an  energetic  course  of  remedies :  — 

Of  lauriol,  century  and  fumytere, 

Or  elles  of  elder  bery,  that  growith  there, 

Of  catapus,  or  of  gaytre  beriis. 

Of  erbe  yve  that  groweth  in  our  yerd. 

The  cock,  in  his  reply,  questions  the  authority  of  Cato,  and 
shows  much  reading,  quoting  freely  from  legendary  and  classic 
lore.  He  pities  the  womanly  ignorance  of  his  feathered  spouse, 
and,  apropos  of  the  legend  of  *  Seint  Kenelm,'  says  :  — 

*  I  hadde  lever  than  my  schert, 
That  ye  had  rad  his  legend,  as  have  I, 
Dame  Pertelot,  I  say  yow  trewely, 
Macrobius,  that  writ  the  avisioun 
In  AuiFrik  of  the  worthy  Cipioun, 
Affermeth  dremes,  and  saith  that  thay  been 
Warnyng  of  thingcs  that  men  after  seen. 


422  THE  NONNE  PRESTES  TALE  Lect.  IX. 

And  forth  ermore,  I  pray  yow  loketh  wel 

In  the  Olde  Testament,  of  Daniel, 

If  he  huld  dremes  eny  vanyte ; 

Rede  eek  of  Joseph,  and  ther  schal  ye  see 

Whethir  dremes  ben  som  tyme  (I  say  nought  alle) 

Warnyng  of  thinges  that  schul  after  falle. 

Lok  of  Egipt  the  king,  daun  Pharao, 

His  baker  and  his  botiler  also, 

Whethir  thay  felte  noon  effect  in  dremis.* 

He  now  tries  to  recover  the  good  graces  of  his  favourite 
sultana  by  a  method  familiar  to  henpecked  husbands,  personal 
flattery :  — 

*  Whan  I  se  the  beauts  of  your  face, 
Ye  ben  so  scarlet  hiew  about  your  eyghen, 
It  makith  al  my  drede  for  to  deyghen.' 

But,  by  way  of  quiet  retaliation  for  Partlet's  sarcasms,  he  cites  a 
Latin  proverbial  saying :  Mulier  est  hor,%inis  confusio,  which 
he  turns  into  a  compliment  by  this  translation :  — 

*  Madame,  the  sentence  of  this  Latyn  is : 
Womman  is  mannes  joye  and  mannes  blis.*. 

He  now 

fleigh  doun  fro  the  beem 

For  it  was  day,  and  eek  his  hennes  alle. 

*  *  *  * 

He  lokith  as  it  were  a  grim  lioun  ; 
And  on  his  toon  he  rometh  up  and  doun 
Him  deyned  not  to  set  his  foot  to  grounde. 
He  chukkith,  whan  he  hath  a  corn  i-founde, 
And  to  him  rennen  than  his  wifes  alle. 

The  fox  seizes  him  while  he  is  crowing,  and  the  conclusion  of 
the  tale  is  as  follows :  — 

Now,  goode  men,  I  pray  herkneth  alle ; 
Lo,  how  fortune  torneth  sodeinly 
The  hope  and  pride  eek  of  her  enemy. 
This  cok  that  lay  upon  this  foxes  bak, 
In  al  his  drede,  unto  the  fox  he  spak, 


Lect.  IX.  THE   KNIGHTES   TALE  423 

And  saide,  *  sire,  if  that  I  were  as  ye, 
Yet  schuld  I  sayn,  (as  wis  God  helpe  me) ; 

*  Tumeth  agein,  ye  proude  cherles  alle  ; 
A  verray  pestilens  upon  yow  falle. 
Now  am  I  come  nnto  this  woodes  syde, 
Mangre  youre  hede,  the  cok  schal  heer  abyde ; 
I  wol  him  ete  in  faith,  and  that  anoon.' 

The  fox  answered,  '  in  faith,  it  schal  be  doon.' 
And  whil  he  spak  that  word,  al  sodeinly 
This  cok  brak  from  his  mouth  delyverly, 
And  heigh  upon  a  tree  he  fleigh  anoon. 
And  whan  the  fox  seigh  that  he  was  i-goon, 

*  Alias  ! '  quod  he,  *  o  Chaunteclere,  alias  ! 
I  have  to  yow,'  quod  he,  '  y-don  trespas, 
Inasmoche  as  I  makid  you  aferd. 

Whan  I  yow  hent,  and  brought  out  of  the  yerd ; 
But,  sire,  I  dede  it  in  no  wicked  entent ; 
Com  doun,  and  I  schal  telle  yow  what  I  ment. 
I  schal  say  soth  to  yow,  God  help  me  so.' 

*  Nay  than,'  quod  he,  '  I  schrew  us  bothe  tuo, 
And  first  I  schrew  myself,  bothe  blood  and  boones, 
If  thou  bigile  me  any  ofter  than  oones. 

Thou  schalt  no  more  thurgh  thy  flaterye. 
Do  me  to  synge  and  wynke  with  myn  ye. 
For  he  that  wynkith,  whan  he  scholde  see, 
Al  wilfully,  God  let  him  never  the ! ' 

*  Nay,'  quod  the  fox,  '  but  God  him  give  meschaunce, 
That  is  so  undiscret  of  governaunce. 

That  jangleth,  when  he  scholde  holde  his  pees.' 

The  Knightes  Tale,  or  the  Story  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  is  a     vi 
favourable  instance  of  Chaucer's  manner  of  dealing  with  the       , 
fables  he  borrowed  from  Romance  authors.     The  Knight's  Tale        / 
is  an  abridged  translation  of  a  part  of  Boccaccio's  Teseide,  but        \ 
with  considerable  changes  in  the  plan,  which  is,  perhaps,  not 
much  improved,  and  with  important  additions  in  the  descriptive 
and  the  more  imaginative  portions  of  the  story.     These  additions 
are  not  inferior  to  the  finest  parts  of  Boccaccio's  work,  and  one 
of  them,  the  description  of  the  Temple  of  Mars,  is  particularly 
interesting,   as  proving   that   Chaucer    possessed   a  power   of 


424  THE   KJsIGHTES  TALE  Lect.  IX. 

treating  the  grand  and  terrible,  of  which  no  modern  poet  hut 
Dante  had  yet  given  an  example.  The  poet  here  intermixes 
the  comic  with  the  tragic,  as  actual  life,  and  life's  great  inter- 
preter, Shakespeare,  so  often  do.  Nature  smiles  through  her 
tears.  Isolated  events,  it  is  true,  are  frequently  stamped  with 
unmitigated  sadness,  but  human  life,  as  a  whole,  whether 
individual  or  general,  is  interspersed  with  ludicrous  scenes. 

There  is  some  confusion  between  the  description  of  the 
edifice  itself,  and  of  the  paintings  upon  the  walls  of  it ;  but  it 
seems  to  have  been  a  representation,  at  Thebes,  of  a  temple 
of  Mars  in  Thrace,  with  its  decorations.  One  feature  of  the 
construction  of  the  temple  is  very  striking,  as  showing  the 
ghastly  character  of  the  light  by  which  the  darkness  of  its 
interior  was  made  visible  : 

The  northen  light  in  at  the  dore  schoii, 
For  wyndow  in  the  walle  ne  was  there  noon, 
Thorugh  which  men  might  no  light  discerne. 

I  suppose  the  '  northern  light'  is  the  aurora  borealis,  but  this 
phenomenon  is  so  rarely  mentioned  by  mediaeval  writers,  that 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  Chaucer  meant  anything  more 
than  the  faint  and  cold  illumination  received  by  reflection 
through  the  door  of  an  apartment  fronting  the  north. 

The  views  which  the  poets  of  classic  antiquity  and  those  of  the 
middle  ages  took  of  nature,  were  modified  and  limited  partly 
by  the  character  of  their  knowledge  of  physical  law,  and  partly 
by  the  actual  connection  between  natural  phenomena  and  the 
practical  interests  of  human  life.  Celestial  and  meteoric  ap- 
pearances, which  neither  affected  the  temperature  of  the  atmo- 
sphere and  the  distribution  of  rain  and  snow,  nor  were  regarded 
as  explicable  by  known  law,  or  as  possessing  an  astrological 
significance  capable  of  interpretation,  appear  to  have  attracted 
very  little  attention.  In  like  manner,  terrestrial  objects,  which 
were  not  sources  of  danger  or  of  profit,  which  neither  helped 
nor  hindered  material  interests,  did  not  in  general  excite  interest 
enousfh  to  stimulate  to  the  closeness  of  observation  which  is 


Lect.  IX.  THE   SQUYEEES   TALE  425 

necessary  to  bring  out  the  latent  poetry  that  lies  hid  under 
Nature's  rudest  surfaces.  Ignorance  of  geograph}^  and  of  his- 
tory smothered  the  cosmopolite  charity  which  ages  of  wider 
instruction  and  culture  have  shown,  and  it  is  not  strange  that 
the  Greeks,  who  regarded  every  foreigner  as  a  barbarian, 
entitled  to  none  of  the  privileges  of  Hellenic  humanity,  should 
have  felt  no  sympathy  with  those  humble  creatures  which  men 
too  selfishly  consider  as  at  all  times  subject  to  their  irrespon- 
sible dominion,  and  as  without  individual  rights  and  interests 
of  their  own.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  such  changes  in  physical 
law  as  the  non-appearance  of  the  aurora  borealis,  during  the 
many  centuries  which  have  left  no  record  of  this  striking 
phenomenon,  would  imply;  but  when  we  remember  that  the 
poetry  of  Greece  and  of  Eome  contains  only  the  fewest,  faintest, 
and  most  questionable  allusions  to  the  phosphoric  sparkling  of 
the  sea,  we  may  well  believe  that  those  who  had  a  hundred  times 
witnessed  the  coruscation  of  the  northern  lights,  thought  it  a 
meteor  too  unrelated  to  the  life  of  man  to  be  worthy  of  poetic 
celebration. 

Every  student  of  Chaucer,  in   reading  the  Squyeres  Tale, 
will  share  the  wish  of  Milton,  that  we  could — 

Call  up  him  who  left  half  told 

The  story  of  Cambuscan  bold, 

Of  Camball,  and  of  Algarsife, 

And  Avho  had  Canace  to  wife, 

That  own'd  the  virtuous  ring  of  glass, 

And  of  the  wondrous  horse  of  brass 

On  which  the  Tartar  king  did  ride. 
This  most  admirable  tale,  which  is  unfortunately  unfinished, 
is  the  wildest  and  the  most  romantic  of  Chaucer's  works.  The 
origin  of  the  fable  has  not  been  discovered,  and  it  has  been 
argued  that  it  must  have  been  drawn  from  an  Oriental  source ; 
not  because  any  analogon  to  it  is  known  to  exist  in  Eastern 
literature,  but  because  it  is  too  little  in  harmony  with  the 
character  of  European  invention  to  be  supposed  of  Occidental 
growth.     However  this  may  be,  the  scene  and  accessories  of  the 


'i 


426  THE  SQUYERES  TALE  Lect.  IX, 

story  do  not  belong  to  the  sphere  of  Oriental  fiction,  and  the 
following  speculations  of  the  bystanders  on  the  mysterious  pro- 
perties of  the  brazen  horse  and  the  magic  mirror,  sword  and 
ring,  can  hardly  be  other  than  the  work  of  Chaucer,  if  not  in 
substance,  at  least  in  form  and  tone : 

Greet  was  the  pres  that  swarmed  to  and  fro 

To  gauren  on  this  hors  that  stondeth  so  ; 

For  it  so  high  was,  and  so  bred  and  long, 

So  wel  proporcioned  to  be  strong, 

Right  as  it  were  a  steed  of  Lumbardye ; 

Therto  so  horsly,  and  so  quyk  of  ye, 

As  if  a  gen  til  Poyleys  courser  were  ; 

For  certes,  fro  his  tayl  unto  his  eere 

Nature  ne  art  ne  couthe  him  nought  amende 

In  no  degre,  as  al  the  poepel  wende. 

But  evermore  her  moste  wonder  was, 

How  that  it  couthe  goon,  and  was  of  bras ; 

It  was  of  fayry,  as  the  poeple  semed. 

Diverse  peple  diversly  they  denied; 

As  many  hedes,  as  many  wittes  been. 

They  murmured,  as  doth  a  swarm  of  been, 

And  made  skiles  after  her  fantasies, 

Eehersyng  of  the  olde  poetries. 

And  seyden  it  was  i-Hke  the  Pagase, 

The  hors  that  hadde  wynges  for  to  fle, 

Or  elles  it  was  the  Grekissch  hors  Synon, 

That  broughte  Troye  to  destruccioun. 

As  men  may  in  the  olde  gestes  rede. 

*  Myn  hert,'  quod  oon,  *  is  evermore  in  drede, 

I  trow  som  men  of  armes  ben  therinne. 

That  schapen  hem  this  cite  for  to  wynne ; 

It  were  good  that  such  thing  were  knowe.' 

Another  rowned  to  his  felaw  lowe. 

And  sayde :  '  It  ly th,  for  it  is  rather  lik 

An  apparence  maad  by  some  magik, 

As  jogelours  play  en  at  this  festes  grete.* 

Of  sondry  thoughtes  thus  they  jangle  and  trete, 

As  lewed  peple  demeth  comunly 

Of  thinges  that  ben  maad  more  subtily 


.-A 


V  rv 


Lect.  IX.  THE   SQUTEEES   TALE 

Than  they  can  in  her  lewednes  comprehende, 
They  deemen  gladly  to  the  badder  ende. 
And  som  of  hem  wondred  on  the  mirrour, 
That  bom  was  up  into  the  maister  tour, 
How  men  might  in  it  suche  thinges  se. 
Another  answerd,  and  sayd,  it  might  wel  be 
Naturelly  by  composiciouns 
Of  angels,  and  of  heigh  reflexiouns ;  * 
And  sayde  that  in  Rome  was  such  oon. 
They  speeke  of  Alhazen  and  Vitilyon, 
And  Aristotle,  that  writen  in  her  lyves 
Of  queynte  myrrours  and  prospectyves, 
As  knowen  they  that  han  her  bokes  herd. 
And  other  folk  have  wondred  on  the  swerd, 
That  wolde  passe  thorughout  everything ; 
And  fel  in  speche  of  Telophus  the  kyng. 
And  of  Achilles  for  his  queynte  spere, 
For  he  couthe  with  it  bothe  hele  and  dere, 
Eight  in  such  wise  as  men  may  with  the  swerd. 
Of  which  right  now  ye  have  your  selven  herd. 
They  speeken  of  sondry  hardyng  of  metal, 
And  speken  of  medicines  therwithal, 
And  how  and  whan  it  schulde  harded  be, 
Which  is  unknowe  algat  unto  me. 
Tho  speeken  they  of  Canacees  ryng, 
And  seyden  alle,  that  such  a  wonder  thing 
Of  craft  of  rynges  herd  they  never  noon, 
Sauf  that  he  Moyses  and  kyng  Salamon 

*  This  reasoning  reminds  one  of  the  popular  explanation  of  table-turning  and 
other  kindred  mysteries.  Persons  who  cannot  detect  the  trick,  and  are  afraid  of 
being  suspected  of  a  superstitious  belief  in  the  supernatural  character  of  the 
phenomenon,  if  they  honestly  confess  their  inability  to  solve  the  pi'oblem, 
take  refuge  in  'science,'  and  ascribe  the  alleged  facts  to  electricity,  though  the 
known  powers  of  that  agent  are  as  inadequate  to  furnish  a  rationale  of  the  extra- 
ordinary gyrations  and  saltations  which  bewitched  tables,  chairs  and  other  house- 
hold gear  are  affirmed  to  execute,  as  are 

*  composiciouns 
Of  angels  [angles],  and  heigh  reflexiouns,* 

to  explain  the  properties  of  the  Tartar's  magic  mirror. 

Men  love  to  cheat  themselves  with  hard  words,  and  indolence  often  accepts  the 
name  of  a  phenomenon  as  a  substitute  for  the  reason  of  it. 


428  CHAUCER   AND   GOWER  Lect.  IX. 

Hadden  a  name  of  connyng  in  such  art. 
Thus  seyen  the  peple,  and  drawen  hem  apart. 
But  natheles  som  seiden  that  it  was 
Wonder  thing  to  make  of  feme  aisschen  glas, 
And  yit  is  glas  nought  like  aisschen  of  feme, 
But  for  they  han  i-knowen  it  so  feme  ; 
Therfor  cesseth  her  janglyng  and  her  wonder. 
As  sore  wondred  som  of  cause  of  thonder, 
On  ebbe  and  flood,  on  gossomer,  and  on  myst. 
And  on  alle  thing,  til  that  the  cause  is  wist. 
Thus  janglen  they,  and  demen  and  devyse, 
Til  that  the  kyng  gan  fro  his  bord  arise. 

Two  other  tales  are  invested  with  a  good  deal  of  critical 
interest,  by  the  fact  that  they  are  generally  supposed  to  have 
been  taken,  though  with  important  modifications,  from  Grower's 
Confessio  Amantis,  which  is  believed  to  have  been  published 
while  Chaucer  was  engaged  upon  the  Canterbury  Tales.  But 
Grower  appears  to  have  invented  nothing,  and  as  not  only  the 
incidents  but  the  plots  of  both  tales  are  found  in  more  ancient 
forms,  it  is  more  probable  that  the  two  poets  borrowed  them 
from  a  common  source  than  that  one  of  them,  even  before  the 
days  of  copyright,  should,  without  acknowledgement,  have  pla- 
giarized from  a  friend  and  contemporary  of  his  own  nation. 
Either  would,  no  doubt,  have  made  free  use  of  foreign  authors, 
and  of  those  popular  legends  which  had  for  centuries  floated 
about  the  world,  and  were  fairly  to  be  regarded  as  nulliusfilii, 
common  property,  to  which  possession  was  a  sufficient  title  ;  but 
Chaucer  cannot  be  convicted  of  '  conveying'  anything  that  was 
rightfully  Grower's,  without  stronger  evidence  than  the  resem- 
blance between  these  stories.  Indeed  there  is,  in  Gower's  dic- 
tion, some  internal  evidence  that  the  story  of  Constance  is  a 
translation  from  the  French,  such,  for  example,  as  the  use  of 
enviroune  as  an  adverb,  in  the  French  sense  of  nearly, 
about,  as : 

Within  a  ten  mile  enviroune, 


Lect.  IX.  CHAUCER   AND    GOWER  429 

within  about  ten  miles.*  Other  instances  to  the  same  purpose 
might  be  cited ;  but  when  we  consider  the  intimate  relations  of 
the  two  languages,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  boundary  between 
them  at  that  period,  it  must  be  admitted  that  such  evidence  is 
worth  little. 

The  leading  incidents  of  the  stories  are  the  same  in  both 
authors,  but  in  Chaucer's  version,  have,  in  general,  more  minute- 
ness of  detail,  though  it  is  observable  that  where  Gower  is  the 
most  circumstantial,  Chaucer  is  the  most  con.cise;  and  in  his 
treatment  of  the  tales  there  are  many  passages,  where  there  is 
an  appearance  of  artificial  condensation  and  abridgement  of  the 
narrative  as  related  by  Gower,  and  a  studied  neglect  of  circum- 
stances not  wholly  uninteresting  in  themselves,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  not  essential  to  the  conduct  of  the  story. 

Gower's  work  had  been  recently  published,  and  was  fresh  in 
the  memory  of  those  for  whom  Chaucer  was  writing ;  hence  it 
is  highly  probable  that  these  variations  were  introduced  for  the 
express  purpose  of  giving  a  new  tone  and  character  to  histories, 
the  leading  circumstances  of  which  were  already  familiar.  A 
stanza  in  Chaucer's  version  of  the  Man  of  Lawes  Tale,  or  the 
History  of  Constance,  is  particularly  curious,  because,  as  some 
of  Chaucer's  critics  have  suggested,  it  is  evidently  designed  as  a 
criticism  upon  Gower's  treatment  of  an  incident  in  the  story. 
In  both  narratives,  King  Alia,  a  Saxon  king,  visiting  Eome  as 
a  pilgrim,  invites  the  Emperor  of  Rome  to  dine  with  him.  In 
Gower,  Morice,  the  son  of  King  Alia,  is  sent  to  an  imperial 
country  residence,  to  deliver  the  invitation.  Gower  thus  ex- 
presses this :  — 

This  emperour  out  of  the  towne, 
Within  a  ten  mile  enviroune, 
Where  as  it  thought  him  for  the  beste 
Hath  sondry  places  for  to  reste, 

*  Enviroun  is  used  in  the  same  way  in  the  Libel  of  English  Policy,  a  poem  of 
the  following  century,  which  will  be  noticed  hereafter,  and  by  Lydgate,  but  I  have 
not  observed  it  in  any  work  of  Gower's  time. 


430  CHAUCER  AND   GOWER  Lect.  IX. 

And  as  fortune  wolde  it  tho 
He  was  dwellend  at  one  of  tho. 
The  King  Allee  forth  with  thassent 
Of  Custe  his  wife  hath  thider  sent 
Morice  his  sone,  as  he  was  taught, 
To  the  emperour,  and  he  goth  straught 
And  in  his  fader  halve  he  sought 
As  he,  whiche  his  lordship  sought, 
That  of  his  highe  worthinesse 
He  wolde  do  so  greet  mekenesse, 
His  owne  town  to  come  and  se. 
And  yive  a  time  in  the  citee. 
So  that  his  fader  might  him  gete. 
That  he  wolde  ones  with  him  ete. 

This  did  not  suit  Chaucer's  more  courtly  notions  of  the 
respect  and  deference  due  from  even  a  king  to  so  exalted  and 
sacred  a  personage  as  the  Emperor  of  Kome,  and  he  makes  King 
Alia  present  the  invitation  in  person,  censuring  at  the  same  time 
Go"wer"'s  version  of  the  story,  thus : 

Som  men  wold  seye,  how  that  his  child  Maurice 

Doth  his  message  unto  the  emperour  : 

But,  as  1  gesse,  Alia  was  nat  so  nyce. 

To  him  that  is  so  soverayn  of  honour, 

As  he  that  is  of  Cristes  folk  the  flour, 

Sent  eny  child,  but  it  is  best  to  deeme 

He  went  himsilf,  and  so  it  may  wel  seme. 

There  is,  upon  the  whole,  no  doubt  that  Chaucer's  is  the  later 
production,  and,  though  it  is  a  more  finished  performance  tiiau 
that  of  Gower,  it  is  somewhat  injured  by  the  intentional  omis- 
sion of  circumstances  which  are  used  not  without  effect  in 
Gower's  version,  but  which  Chaucer  dropped,  in  order  that  the 
coincidence  between  the  two  might  not  be  too  close. 

The  other  narrative  which  has  been  thought  to  be  borrowed 
from  the  Confessio  Amantis,  is  the  \Vyi  of  Bathes  Tale.  The 
dialect  of  this  story,  as  given  by  Gower,  varies  considerably  from 
that  of  the  rest  ot  his  poem,  as  it  is  older  in  structure,  and  con- 
tains several  obsolete  words  which  Gower  does  not  elsewhere 


Lect.  IX.  ~  JOHN   GOWER  431 

employ.  It  is  therefore,  in  all  probability,  an  adaptation  of  a 
more  ancient  tale,  in  which  the  incidents,  and  in  part  the  lan- 
guage, are  preserved.  In  Chaucer's  version  there  is  the  same 
manifest  intention  of  departing  from  Grower  as  in  the  story  of 
Constance,  and  it  is  in  this  tale  that  he  enforces,  in  the  person  of 
the  old  dame,  the  opinions  concerning  the  true  test  of  gentle 
rank,  which  he  had  formerly  interpolated  into  his  translation  of 
the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose.  No  such  opinions  are  expressed  by 
Grower,  or,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  older  English  or  French 
author,  and  they  are  no  doubt  Chaucer's  own.* 

Grower  was  a  contemporary  of  the  author  of  Piers  Ploughman, 
and  of  Wycliffe  as  well  as  of  Chaucer.  He  is  known  to  English 
readers  by  the  long  poem  styled  the  Confessio  Amantis,  or 
Lover's  Confession.  The  reputation  of  Gower,  which  was,  for  a 
long  time,  above  his  merits,  seems  to  be  in  some  measure  due 
to  his  connection  with  Chaucer,  though  he  did  not  entertain 

*  A  remarkable  form  of  expression,  which  occurs  in  verse  3098  of  the  Eomaunt 
of  the  Kose,  and  which  I  do  not  remember  to  have  observed  elsewhere  in  Chaucer's 
works,  deserves  special  notice  — 

'  Say  boldely  thy  will'  (quod  he) 

'  I  nill  be  wroth,  if  that  I  may. 

For  nought  that  thou  shalt  to  me  say.* 

The  meaning  of  the  phrase,  *  if  that  I  may,'  here  is  :  if  I  can  not-he  wroth ;  if  I 
can  refrain  from  being  wroth.  I  find  an  analogous  phrase  in  Paul  Louis  Courier, 
Pamphlets  Politiques,  Seconde  Lettre  Particuliere :  '  Yous  ne  saurez  rien  cette 
fois  ;  pas  un  mot,  nulle  nouvelle ;  pour  vous  punir,  je  veux  ne  vous  rien  dire,  si  je 
piiis.^     I  will  not-tell  you  anything,  if  I  can.' 

In  both  these  passages,  the  determination,  in  the  mind  of  the  speaker,  not-to-do 
the  thing  in  question,  or  to  refrain  from  it,  is  conceived  to  be  so  strong,  that  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  mere  negation,  and  has  assumed  the  form  of  a  proposition  logically 
positive. 

In  Chaucer,  the  coaleseent  negative  verb,  nill,  gives  the  expression  a  force 
which  Courier  could  not  attain  to  ;  for  in  languages  where  a  negative  verbal  form 
exists,  the  negation  is  more  energetic  than  when  a  separate  particle  is  used.  The 
Latin  nolo,  the  English  1  nill,  are  a  species  of  affirmative,  which  means  more 
than  non  volo,7  will  not — the  absence  of  a  volition  —  and,  on  the  contrary, 
implies  a  strong  volition  in  the  opposite  direction.  Courier  felt  this,  and  there- 
fore he  does  not  use  the  negative  verb,  je  ne  veux,  but  he  puts  the  expression  of 
will  in  an  affirmative  iovva.:  je  veux,  and  connects  the  negative  with  the  act: 
ne-vous-rien-dire. 


432  gower's  confessio  amantis       ,  Lect.  IX. 

the  views  of  reform  which  Chancer  shared  with  the  other  great 
writers  of  that  century  whom  we  have  just  named.  His  literary 
inferiority  is  perhaps  to  be  ascribed  to  the  very  fact  that  he 
did  not  possess  the  manly  independence  and  moral  courage  of 
Wycliffe  and  of  Chaucer,  and  was  unable  to  shake  off  the 
feeling  of  deference  to  traditional  authority,  which  in  all  ages 
has  proved  so  generally  fatal  to  originality  in  productive  intel- 
lectual effort. 

Many  of  Gower's  works  are  in  Latin,  and  the  only  one  which 
is  generally  accessible  is  the  Confessio  Amantis,  an  English 
poem,  written,  as  the  author  declares,  at  the  request  of  King 
Kichard  II.  In  a  proem  which  was  suppressed  in  the  copies 
issued  after  Eichard's  deposition,  he  thus  states  the  motive  and 
occasion  of  the  composition  of  this  work : 

I  thenke  and  have  it  understonde, 
As  it  befell  uponajtide, 
As  thmg,  whichsliulde  tho  betide, 
Under  the  town  of  newe  Troy, 
Which  toke  of  Brute  his  firste  joy, 
In  Themse,  whan  it  was  flowcnd, 
As  I  by  bote  came  rowend, 
So  as  fortune  her  time  sette, 
My  lege  lord  perchaunce  I  mette, 
And  so  befell ^J[^amejiigh, 
Out  of  my  boote,  ■vvhanjiejne_sigli, 
He  bad  me  come  into  his  barge. 
And  whan  I  was  with  him  at  large, 
Amongesotherjlnnges  said, 
He  hath  this  charge  upon  me  laid, 
And  bad  me  do  my  besinesse. 
That  to  his  highe  worthynesse 
Some  newe  thing  I  shulde  boke, 
That  he  himself  it  mighte  loke 
After  the  forme  of  my  writing. 

The  language  of  this  last  couplet  would  seem  to  imply  that, 
though  we  have  Froissart's  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  King 
knew  French,  he  was  ignorant  of  Latin,  and  desired  to  have 


Lect.  IX.  gower's  confessio  ama^^tis  433 

something  from  tlie  pen  of  Grower,  which  he  could  read  by 
himself,  without  the  aid  of  an  interpreter.  He  resolved  to 
comply  with  the  royal  command,  and,  because 

men  sain,  and  sotlie  it  is, 
That  who  that  al  of  wisdom  writ, 
It  dulleth  ofte  a  mannes  wit, 
To  hem  that  shall  it  alday  rede, 

to  produce  something  of  a  less  grave  and  severe  cast  than  his 
former  works  ;  to  — 

go  the  middel  wey, 
And  write  a  boke  betwene  the  twey, 

Somewhat  of  Inst,  somewhat  of  lore. 

*  *  *  * 

And  for  that  fewe  men  endite 
In  cure  englisshe,  I  thenke  make 

A  boke  for  King  Richardes  sake. 

*  *  *  * 

To  make  a  boke  after  his  heste. 
And  write  in  such  a  maner  wise, 
"Which  may  be  wisdome  to  the  wise, 
And  play  to  hem  that  list  to  play. 

The  title  of  the  poem.  The  Lover's  Confession,  indicates  its 
general  subject,  which  is  a  consultation,  in  the  form  of  a  con- 
fession, between  an  unsuccessful  lover  and  an  experienced 
counsellor.  The  prologue  is  devoted  to  an  exposure  of  the 
evils  of  the  time,  in  which  the  schism  in  the  church  is  alluded 
to,  as  the  cause  of  the  social  wrongs  of  the  age,  and  of  the  cor- 
ruptions of  the  clergy,  including,  of  course. 

This  newe  secte  of  lollardie. 

The  prologue  is  much  superior  to  the  rest  of  the  work,  though 
certainly  not  very  appropriate  to  the  poem.  The  author  seems 
to  have  written  it  with  the  view  of  covertly  giving  the  king 
some  useful  suggestions,  by  pointing  out  existing  abuses,  and 
hinting  at  the  remedy.  He  speaks  of  himself  and  his  general 
purpose  thus : 

F  F 


434  GOWER's  CONFESSIO  AMANTIS  Lect.  IX. 

I  which  am  a  borel  clerke 
Purpose  for  to  write  a  boke 
After  the  worlde,  that  whilom  toke 
Long  time  in  olde  daies  passed. 
But  for  men  sain  it  is  now  lassed 
In  worse  plight  than  it  was  tho, 
I  thenke  for  to  touche  also 
The  world,  which  neweth  every  day, 
So  as  I  can,  so  as  I  may. 
Though  I  sikenesse  have  upon  hohde 
And  longe  have  had,  yet  wol  I  fonde 
To  write  and  do  my  besinesse, 
That  in  some  part  so  as  I  gesse 
The  wise  man  may  ben  advised. 

The  following  laudatio  temporis  acti  is  a  fair  specimen  of 
the  general  tone  of  the  prologue :  — 

If  I  shall  drawe  into  my  minde 
The  time  passed,  than  I  finde 
The  world  stode  in  al  his  welthe, 
Tho  was  the  life  of  man  in  helthe, 
Tho  was  plente,  tho  was  richesse, 
Tho  was  the  fortune  of  prowesse, 
Tho  was  knighthode  in  pris  by  name, 
Wherof  the  wide  worldes  fame 
Write  in  croniques  is  yet  witholde. 
Justice  of  lawe  tho  was  holde, 
The  privelege  of  regalie 
Was  sauf,  and  all  the  baronie 
Worshiped  was  in  his  estate. 
The  citees  knewen  no  debate, 
The  people  stode  in  obeisaunce 
Under  the  reule  of  governaunce, 
And  pees  with  rightwisnesse  keste, 
With  charite  tho  stode  in  reste, 
Of  mannes  herte  the  corage 
Was  shewed  than  in  the  visage. 
The  word  was  liche  to  the  conceipte, 
Without  semblaunt  of  deceipte, 
Tho  was  there  unenvied  love, 


Lect.  IX.  gower's  confessio  amantis  435 

Tho  was  vertue  set  above, 
,  And  vice  was  put  under  fote. 
Now  stant  the  crope  under  the  rote, 
The  worlde  is  chaunged  overall, 
And  therof  moste  in  speciall 
That  love  is  falle  into  discorde. 
And  that  I  take  to  recorde 
Of  every  lond  for  his  partie 
The  comun  vois,  which  may  nought  lie, 
Nought  upon  one,  but  upon  alle.  , 

It  is  that  men  now  clepe  and  calle 
And  sain,  that  regnes  ben  devided, 
•  In  stede  of  love  is  hate  guided. 

The  werre  wol  no  pees  purchace. 
And  lawe  hath  take  her  double  face. 
So  that  justice  out  of.  the  wey 
"With  rightwisnesse  is  gone  awey. 
And  thus  to  loke  on  every  halve, 
Men  sene  the  sore  without  salve, 
Whiche  al  the  worlde  hath  overtake. 
Ther  is  no  regne  of  alle  out  take. 
For  every  climat  hath  his  dele 
After  the  torninge  of  the  whele. 
Which  blinde  fortune  overthroweth, 
Wherof  the  certain  no  man  knoweth. 
The  heven  wot  what  is  to  done. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  action,  the  author,  in  the 
character  of  a  despairing  lover,  wanders  alone  in  a  forest,  and 
offers  a  prayer  to  Venus,  who  makes  her  appearance  and  refers 
the  suppliant  to  her  priest,  for  counsel  and  consolation.  After 
an  exhortation  from  this  father  confessor,  the  penitent  begins 
his  shrift,  which  is  chiefly  in  the  form  of  answers  to  questions, 
Venus's  priest  being  evidently  partial  to  the  Socratic  method  of 
argument.  The  counsels  and  comforts  of  the  confessor  consist 
principally  of  narratives,  from  ancient  as  well  as  mediaeval 
legendary  lore,  which  have  generally  little  application  to  the 
immediate  subject.  These  are  mainly,  if  not  altogether,  trans- 
lations, or  rather  metrical  paraphrases,  from  classical  as  well  as 


436  JOHN   GOWER  Lect.  IX. 

later  Latin  authors,  and  are  executed  with  very  moderate  skill, 
whether  considered  as  versions  or  as  adaptations.  Of  original 
imaginative  power,  the  poem  shows  not  the  slightest  trace,  and 
its  principal  merit  lies  in  the  sententious  passages,  which  are 
here  and  there  interspersed,  and  which,  whether  borrowed  or 
original,  are  often  pithy  and  striking.  In  his  earlier  works, 
Gower  had  employed  Latin  and  French  altogether.  It  is 
generally  supposed  that  he  adopted  English  as  the  language  of 
the  Oonfessio  Amantis  in  consequence  of  the  success  of  Chaucer's 
poem  in  the  vernacular ;  but  I  think  the  lines  I  have  already 
quoted  authorise  us  to  believe  that  English  was  selected  in^ com- 
pliance with  the  wish  of  the  monarch,  at  whose  request  the 
work  was  undertaken. 

Of  Gower's  principal  French  work,  the  Speculum  Medi- 
tantis,  no  copy  is  known  to  be  in  existence,  but  there  are 
extant  about  fifty  French  amatory  ballads  composed  by  him  in 
imitation  of  Provenzal  models,  but  which  seem  to  exhibit  no 
special  merit  in  invention  or  in  style. 

In  one  of  these,  he  apologises  for  his  want  of  command  of 
Ji'rench,  as  an  Englishman,  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  if  he  was 
conscious  of  any  deficiency  in  this  respect,  he  should  not  have 
resorted  to  English  until  a  late  period  of  his  life.*  It  is  not 
improbable,  as  has  been  often  suggested,  that  certain  passages 
in  the  prologue  to  Chaucer's  prose  Testament  of  Love,  con- 
demning the  use  of  French  by  native  English  writers,  may 
have  been  aimed  at  Gower.  '  There  ben  some,'  says  he,  *  that 
speke  their  poysy  mater  in  Frenche,  of  whyche  speche  the 
Frenche  men  have  as  good  a  fantasye,  as  we  have  in  hearing  of 
Frenche   mennes  Englysshe.'      'Let  then  clerks  endyten   in 

*  Al  universite  de  tout  le  monde 
Johan  Gower  ceste  balade  enroie, 
Et  si  jeo  nai  de  fran9ois  la  faconde, 
Pardonetz  moi  qe  jeo  de  ceo  forsvoie. 
Jeo  sui  Englois  si  quier  par  tiele  voie 
Estre  excuse  mais  quoique  nulls  endie, 
Lamour  parfit  en  dieu  se  justifie. 


Lect.  IX.  GOWEIl's   VEESIFICATION  437 

Latyn,  for  they  have  the  propertye  of  science,  and  the  knowinge 
in  that  facultye ;  and  lette  Frenchmen  in  theyr  Frenche  also 
endyte  theyr  queynt  termes,  for  it  is  kyndly  to  theyr  mouthes ; 
and  let  us  shewe  our  fantasyes  in  suche  wordes  as  we  lerned  of 
our  dames  tonge.'* 

Gower  certainly  survived  Chaucer,  but  was  probably  born 
before  him.  His  English  is  philologically  older,  both  in  voca- 
bulary and  in  grammatical  structure,  than  that  of  Chaucer, 
though  younger  in  both  respects  than  the  dialect  of  Piers 
Ploughman.  Pauli  ascribes  his  frequent  use  of  French  words 
to  his  habit  of  composing  in  that  language,  but  his  vocabulary 
does  not  differ  essentially  in  this  respect  from  those  of  Lang- 
lande,  Chaucer,  and  other  authors  of  their  time ;  and  I  see  no 
reason  for  believing  that  his  dialect  was  more  affected  by 
Eomance  influences  than  the  common  written  language  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived. 

The  metre  of  the  Confessio  Amantis  is  the  octosyllabic,  of 
four  iambuses,  besides  the  superfluous  syllable  which  often 
makes  what  is  called  a  feminine  rhyme.  In  point  of  rhythm 
and  metre,  Gower's  versification  is  smooth,  though  less  melo- 
dious than  that  of  Chaucer,  and  his  rhymes  are  inartificial,  the 
same  word,  or  the  same  entire  syllable,  being  repeated  for  the 
consonance,  without  scruple.  This  peculiarity  is  also  observable 
in  his  French  ballads.  The  conjugation  of  the  verb  is  varied 
to  suit  the  convenience  of  the  poet,  with  little  regard  to  the 
Saxon  distinction  of  strong  and  weak  inflection,  or  to  what 
appears  to  have  been  the  common  usage  of  his  age.  He  also 
confounds  the  affirmative  particles  yea  and  yes,  at  least  accord- 

*  This  passage  and  that  before  referred  to  are  not  the  only  ones  in  which 
Chaucer  appears  to  censure  his  Tbrother  poet ;  for  the  condemnation  he  passes,  in 
the  prologue  to  the  Man  of  Lawes  Tale,  on  the  immorality  of  the  stories  of  Canace 
and  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  both  of  which  are  found  in  the  Confessio  Amantis,  is 
understood  by  Tyrwhitt  and  other  critics  to  have  been  designed  to  apply  to  Gower. 
It  is  much  to  be  lamented  that  Chaucer  himself  should  have  polluted  his  own 
greatest  work  with  such  shocking  grossness  and  licentiousness  as  many  of  his  tales 
exhibit. 

t  See  First  Series,  Lectiu-e  I.  p.  22. 


438 


GOWER  S   DICTION 


Lect.  IX, 


ing  to  Pauli's  text ;  but  this  may  be  the  fault  of  editors  and 
printers,  for  in  Gower's  time  no  English  idiom  was  better  esta- 
blished than  this  distinction.  In  fact,  though  not  without 
power  as  a  sententious  thinker,  Gower  gives  little  evidence  of 
artistic  skill,  or  of  the  possession  of  any  of  the  higher  attributes 
of  the  poet. 

Philologically  speaking,  Gower  is,  as  I  have  already  remarked, 
older  than  Chaucer,  though  his  first  English  work  was  not  com- 
posed until  the  reputation  of  Chaucer,  as  a  great  original  and 
national  poet,  was  established.  The  difference,  however,  in 
this  respect,  is  in  degree  rather  than  in  kind,  and  as  it  consists 
more  in  the  tone,  and  in  a  negative  want  of  the  life  and  fresh- 
ness and  accuracy  of  Chaucer's  English,  it  is  not  easy  to  specify 
its  peculiarities.  I  may  however  mention,  in  addition  to  the 
irregularity  in  verbal  inflection  already  noticed,  the  more  fre- 
quent use  of  the  participial  termination  in  -end,  which  marks 
the  true  distinction  between  the  present  participle  and  the 
verbal  noun  in  -ing — a  distinction,  which,  as  was  observed  in  a 
former  lecture,  became  obsolete  in  English  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  though  kept  up  long  afterwards  in  the 
Scottish  dialect.  There  are,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
observe,  no  improvements  of  diction  or  style  in  Gower,  which 
had  not  been  as  well,  or  better,  exemplified  by  Chaucer ;  and  in 
these  particulars  the  latter  must  be  considered  the  master  of 
the  former.  Skelton  and  those  who  have  copied  him  are  there- 
fore in  error  in  saying  that  —  *  Gower  first  garnished  our 
English  rude,'  for  most  of  Chaucer's  works  are  older  than  the 
Confessio  Amantis,  and  Gower  himself  makes  Venus  style 
Chaucer  *  her  poet,'  and  say  that — 

in  the  floures  of  his  youth, 
In  sundry  wise,  as  he  well  couth, 
Of  dittees  and  of  songes  glade, 
The  which  he  for  my  sake  made, 
The  lend  fulfilled  is  over  all. 

This,  of  course,   implies  that  Chaucer's  poems  had  already 


Lect.  IX.  LITERATURE   OF   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY  439 

acquired   a  wide   circulation  before   Grower  wrote  in  English 
verse  at  all. 

The  Confessio  Amantis,  then,  did  not  directly  aid  in  enlarging 
the  vocabulary  or  improving  the  syntax  of  English ;  and  it  did 
not  introduce  new  metrical  forms  or  enrich  the  poetical  diction. 
But  it  was  useful  in  diffusing  a  knowledge  of  the  new  literary 
tongue,  in  familiarizing  the  English  speech  as  a  written  lan- 
guage to  those  whose  proper  heritage  it  was — but  who  had  been 
taught  alien  accents  by  a  foreign  nurse — thus  giving  to  it  its 
just  and  lawful  predominance  in  the  land  where  it  was  cradled, 
and  had  now  grown  to  a  strong  and  luxuriant  adolescence. 

Grower  was  rather  an  imitator  of  Chaucer  than  the  creator  of 
his  own  literary  style ;  but  his  works,  as  being  of  a  higher  moral 
tone,  or  at  least  of  higher  moral  pretensions,  and  at  the  same 
time,  of  less  artificial  refinement,  were  calculated  to  reach  and 
influence  a  somewhat  larger  class  than  that  which  would  be 
attracted  by  the  poems  of  Chaucer,  and,  consequently,  they 
seem  to  have  had  a  wider  circulation.  The  name  of  Chaucer 
does  not,  I  believe,  occur  in  the  works  of  Shakespeare ;  but  the 
play  of  Pericles — which,  though  its  authorship  is  disputed,  was 
published  in  Shakespeare's  own  time  as  a  work  of  his  compo- 
sition— is  avowedly  formed  on  the  story  of  Apollinus,  Prince  of 
Tyre,  in  the  Confessio  Amantis ;  and  Grower  himself  is  intro- 
duced by  name  into  the  play,  and  performs  the  office  of  the 
chorus  of  the  ancient  drama.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  poem 
of  Gower,  however  inferior  to  the  works  of  his  master,  was  much 
esteemed  in  his  lifetime,  and  still  enjoyed  a  high  reputation 
in  ages  when  Chaucer  was  almost  forgotten.  But  posterity  has 
reversed  the  judgement  of  its  immediate  predecessors,  and  though 
Gower  will  long  be  read,  he  will  never  again  dispute  the  palm 
of  excellence  with  the  true  father  of  English  literature. 

In  taking  leave  of  the  great  authors  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
I  ought  perhaps  to  apologise  for  devoting  so  large  a  portion  of 
this  brief  course  to  the  dialect  and  the  literature  of  that  period 
But  I  am  convinced  that  the  importance  of  Langlande  and 


440  ORIGINAL   MANUSCEIPTS  Lect.  IX. 

Wycliffe  and  Chaucer  to  all  subsequent  English  philology  and 
intellectual  effort,  though  long  vaguely  recognised,  is  not  yet 
appreciated  and  understood.  Nor  shall  we  be  able  to  estimate 
their  relative  place  and  just  significance  in  our  literary  history, 
until  still  more  of  the  forgotten  authorship  of  that  and  the 
preceding  centuries  shall  be  brought  to  light,  and  linguistic 
science,  as  applied  to  the  English  tongue,  be  much  further 
advanced  than  it  now  is,  or,  without  increased  facilities  of  in- 
vestigation, can  be. 

From  the  corruption  of  original  texts  through  the  ignorance 
or  arrogance  of  those  who  transcribed  them,  it  is  evident  that 
we  can  ascertain  the  grammatical  system  of  particular  writers 
of  the  period  we  are  discussing  only  by  the  examination  of 
authors'  copies.  This  renders  the  publication  of  such,  whenever 
they  can  be  discovered,  a  matter  of  great  interest  and  importance. 
If,  indeed,  the  manuscript  of  the  earliest  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  is  ascribed  to  Hereford,  is  really  his  own, 
the  value  attached  to  such  originals  might  well  seem  exag- 
gerated, for  it  would  be  clear  that  one  important  authority 
was  not  to  be  reconciled  with  itself.  Not  onl}^  does  the  latter 
portion  of  that  translation  differ  from  the  earlier  in  its  inflec- 
tional system,  but  in  the  books  which  come  last  in  the  manu- 
script, the  grammar  is,  in  many  points,  more  archaic  than  in 
the  books  which  precede  them  in  the  copy,  and  which  therefore, 
presumably,  were  first  executed.  Doubtless,  the  paleographical 
evidence  is  decisive  as  to  the  identity  of  the  handwriting  in  the 
historical  books  and  the  Prophets.  But  it  is  a  long  step  from 
this  question  to  that  of  the  authorship  of  the  manuscript,  and 
even  the  opinion  of  the  very  learned  and  conscientious  editors 
of  the  Wycliffite  translations  cannot  outweigh  the  internal 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  unless  supported  by  strong  external 
testimony.  Until  such  proof  is  adduced,  we  are  at  liberty  to 
believe  that  the  manuscript  ascribed  to  Hereford  is  not  an 
original,  but  a  copy  of  a  version  by  at  least  two  different  trans- 
lators, who  adopted  different  systems  of  accidence. 


Lkct.  IX.  LITERATURE   OF   FOURTEENTK   CENTURY  441 

The  original  manuscript  of  a  translation  of  Higden's  Poly- 
chronicon  by  Trevisa,  a  contemporary  of  Chaucer,  is  said,  upon 
I  know  not  what  authority,  to  be  still  extant,  and  is  now  in 
course  of  publication.  Trevisa  is  reported  to  have  translated 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  Bible  into  English,  and  the  publica- 
tion of  the  chronicle  may  throw  some  light  on  his  connection 
with  the  Wycliffite  versions,  and  thus  contribute  to  elucidate 
some  very  important  questions  in  the  history  of  the  language 
and  history  of  England.* 

The  zeal  and  activity  of  British  scholarship  are  fast  rescuing 
the  remaining  sibylline  leaves  of  old  English  literature  from 
destruction,  and  a  few  years  more  will  prepare  the  way  for  the 
crowning  labour  in  the  early  philology  of  England  —  a  worthy 
edition  of  the  worthiest  of  her  ancient  poets,  the  immortal 
Chaucer. 

In  the  meantime,  though  the  texts  of  the  authors  upon  whom 
I  have  dwelt  so  long  present  many  prosodical  and  grammatical 
problems  which  cannot  yet  be  solved,  they  are  all  perfectly 
accessible,  and,  so  far  as  the  general  purposes  of  literary  culture 
and  literary  criticism  require,  intelligible.  By  the  help  of  the 
notes  and  glossaries  which  accompany  the  recent  editions  of  old 
English  writers,  from  Layamon  and  the  Ormulum  to  Langlande, 
Wycliflfe,  Chaucer  and  Grower,  every  one  of  them  may  be  easily 
read,  without  preparatory  study,  and  a  great  familiarity  with 
their  dialect  may  be  acquired  at  less  cost  of  time  and  labour 
than  are  needed  to  learn  to  spell  out,  by  help  of  dictionary  and 
grammar,  a  page  of  French  or  German. 

But,  like  the  traveller,  who,  absorbed  by  the  fair  proportions 
of  a  Grrecian  portico  and  the  living  sculptures  of  its  pediment, 
forgets  to  explore  the  interior  of  the  temple,  I  have  lingered 
too  long  about  the  vestibule,  and  must  now  hasten  to  pass 
through  the  darkened  corridors  which  lead  to  the  still  more 
sacred  portions  of  the  magnificent  structure. 

•  See  Longer  Notes  and  Illustrations,  V.  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 


442  SIGNIFICANCE   OP  WORDS  Lect.  IX. 

LONGER  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 
I. 

SIGNIFICANCE   OF   INDIVIDUAL   WORDS. 

The  shallowness  of  popular  English  and  American  criticism  is  no- 
where more  glaringly  manifested  than  in  the  extravagant  commendations 
which  have  been  bestowed  on  some  modern  dictionary-makers,  as  philo- 
sophical expositors  and  discriminators  of  words. 

Lexicographers  are  under  a  constant  temptation  to  save  themselves 
labour  by  building  on  the  foundation  of  their  predecessors,  and  to 
study  dictionaries,  not  literature.  They  thus  acquire  the  habit  of  re- 
garding words  as  completely  significant  individuals,  and  they  are  prone 
to  multiply  descriptions,  to  make  distinctions  where  no  difference  exists, 
and  especially  to  ascribe  to  single  vocables  meanings  which  belong, 
either  to  entire  phraseological  combinations,  grammatical  agglutinations 
so  to  speak,  or  to  a  different  member  of  the  phrase  from  that  to  which 
they  assign  them.  Hence  their  definitions  are  too  diffuse,  and  often  so 
much  embarrassed  by  conditions  and  qualifications  as  to  smother  the 
radical  idea  of  the  word  altogether,  or  to  confine  it  to  a  special  sense 
which  it  only  accidentally  possesses,  instead  of  giving  it  a  general 
expression,  which  admits  of  the  protean  variety  of  shade  and  extension, 
that,  in  cultivated  languages,  belongs  to  almost  all  words,  except  names 
of  visible  objects,  and  mere  terms  of  art  whose  signification  is  not 
organically  developed  from  the  root,  but  arbitrarily  and  conventionally 
imposed  upon  it.  In  studying  the  definitions  of  the  dictionaries  which 
pass  for  the  best  in  this  respect,  we  find  that  there  was  in  the  mind  of 
the  lexicographer  not  a  clearness  of  distinction,  but  a  confusion  of 
thought  arising  from  the  habit  of  incessantly  poring  on  word-lists,  and 
constantly  contemplating  individual  terms  isolated  from  those  connec- 
tions and  relations  which  alone  can  breathe  into  them  a  living  spirit, 
and  make  them  anything  but  imelastic  and  inert  matter. 

It  is  futile  to  attempt  to  make  that  absolute  which  is,  in  its  nature, 
relative  and  conditional,  to  formulate  that  which  in  itself  does  not  con- 
stitute an  individual  and  complete  idea,  to  make  technical  definition  a 
mouthpiece  for  words  which  ought  to  be  allowed  to  speak  for  them- 
selves by  exemplification,  and  to  petrify  them  into  a  rigidity  of  form 
irreconcilable  with  that  play  of  feature  which  is  so  essential  to  life-like 
expressiveness.    Dictionary-definitions,  considered  as  a  means  of  philo- 


Lect.  IX.  OBSOLETE   ANGLO-SAXON   WORDS  443 

logical  instruction,  are  as  inferior  to  miscellaneous  reading  as  a  hortus- 
siccus  to  a  botanic  garden.  "Words,  with  the  exception  above  stated, 
exert  their  living  powers,  and  give  utterance  to  sentiment  and  meaning, 
only  in  the  organic  combinations  for  which  nature  has  adapted  them, 
and  not  in  the  alphabetic  single-file  in  which  lexicographers  post  and 
drill  them.  The  signification  of  the  vocabulary  belonging  to  the  higher 
workings  of  the  mind  and  heart  depends  on  the  context,  and  therefore 
these  words  have  almost  as  many  shades  of  meaning  as  they  have  pos- 
sible combinations  with  other  words  in  periods  and  phrases.  These 
shades  can  only  be  perceived  and  apprehended  by  a  wide  familiarity 
with  the  literature  which  presents  verbal  combinations  in  all  their 
variety ;  and  all  that  a  dictionary  can  do  is  to  give  the  general  meaning 
of  the  vocable  and  illustrate  its  changeable  hues  by  exemplification  of 
its  most  important  uses.  There  does  not  exist  a  dictionary  of  any  lan- 
guage, living  or  dead,  whose  definitions  are  to  be  considered  evidence 
as  to  the  exact  meaning  of  words.  The  best  dictionary  of  any  living 
language  yet  executed  is  unquestionably  that  of  the  German  by  the 
brothers  Grimm,  now  in  course  of  publication.  These  great  philologists 
do  not  attempt  formal  definition  at  all.  They  give  the  nearest  corres- 
ponding Latin  equivalent,  and  a  brief  general  indication  of  the  meaning 
of  the  word,  but  leave  the  student  to  gather  the  precise  signification  or 
significations  from  the  exemplifications.  Eichardson's  valuable  English 
dictionary  gives  no  definitions.  A  dictionary  is  but  an  index  to  the 
literature  of  a  given  speech  ;  or  rather  it  bears  to  language  the  relation 
which  a  digest  bears  to  a  series  of  legal  reports.  Neither  is  an  autliority  ; 
and  he  is  but  a  sorry  lawyer  who  cites  the  one,  an  indiflferent  scholar 
who  quotes  the  other,  as  such. 


n. 

OBSOLETE   ANGLO-SAXON   WORDS. 

la  Illustration  I.  to  Lecture  III.  I  have  given  a  list  of  many  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  derived  from  the  three  roots,  hyge  or  hige,  mind  or 
thought;  mod,  mind,  passion,  irritability,  wit,  genius,  intellect,  sense; 
and  ge- thane,  mind,  thought,  opinion.  Of  these,  hyge  and  its  score 
of  derivations  are  all  obsolete.  Of  the  equally  numerous  progeny  of 
mod,  there  remain  only  mood,  moodily,  moodiness,  moody,  mad.  The 
thirty  Anglo-Saxon  words  derived  from  wit  are  reduced  to  less  than 
half  a  dozen,  though  we  have  formed  several  new  compounds  and 
derivations  from  the  same  root.     From  ge-thanc,  we  have  a  larger 


444  OBSOLETE   ANGLO-SAXON   WORDS  Lect.  IX. 

number,  but  many  of  them  are  of  modern  formation,  and  most  of  the 
Anglo-  Saxon  derivatives  from  this  root  are  obsolete.  The  preface  to 
Alfred's  Boethius  cited  in  Illustration  IV.  Lecture  III.  contains,  exclu- 
sive of  repetitions  and  various  forms  and  inflections  of  the  same  vocable, 
about  seventy  words.  Of  these,  the  following  important  ones  are  obso- 
lete :  jemetta,  leisure  (from  the  same  root  as  the  adjective  emptij\ 
andget  or  andgit,  sense^  meaning,  and  its  derivative,  andgitfulli- 
cost;  earfod,  hard-,  biddan,  though  extant  with  the  meaning  of  to 
command,  has  become  obsolete  in  the  religious  sense  of  to  pray,  where 
a  Romance  word  has  supplanted  it;  gereccan,  to  express,  render,  or 
tell;  healsian,  to  beseech  or  implore,  though  still  used  as  a  salutation 
in  the  religious  and  poetic  dialect,  and  in  the  sense  to  call  to,  in  that  of 
navigation;  hwilum,  dat.  pi.  of  the  noun  hwil,  sometimes,  obsolete 
in  English,  but,  in  the  form  whiles,  extant  in  Scotch,  and  sometimes 
used  in  English,  jocosely,  in  the  form  whilom ;  our  adverb  ivhile  or 
whilst  is  the  same  word  with  a  different  meaning;  led  en,  speech,  lan- 
guage, used  by  Chaucer  but  now  lost;  lichoman,  body,  maed,  measure, 
obsolete  as  a  noun,  though  mete,  verb,  is  used  in  the  solemn  style,  and 
mete,  adjective,  may  be  allied,  but  this  is  doubtful;  mod,  mind,  obsolete 
in  this  sense;  ongitan,  to  understand,  cognate  with  andget;  rice, 
kingdom;  the  modern  rich  is  from  the  same  root;  rime,  number,  extant 
only  in  rhyme,  mistakenly  supposed  to  be  from  the  Greek.  The  coinci- 
dence between  rim  and  Greek  upidnog  is  noticeable;  mistlic,  not 
cognate  with  mix,  but  a  compound  of  mis  and  lie,  un-like,  and  hence 
various;  spell,  language,  obsolete  in  this  and  many  other  Anglo-Saxon 
meanings;  sweotol ^? /am,  c/ear:  swiSe,  wn/;  wwdiQTion,  to  under- 
take, assume,  receive;  wealhstod,  translator;  wendan,  the  source  of 
our  to  wend,  but  obsolete  in  the  sense  to  turn ;  witan,  to  blame,  but 
the  verb  to  twit  is  from  this  root,  and  derived  either  from  the  compound 
sedwitan,  edwitan,  aet witan,  or  possibly  from  the  gerundial  to 
witenne,  he  is  to  witenne,  he  is  to  blame.* 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  words  I  have  mentioned  were  still  in  use 

*  The  revisors  of  the  English  Bible  of  1611  sacrificed  a  genuine  Saxon-English 
idiom  when,  in  Galatians  ii.  11,  they  wrote :  he  was  to  be  blamed,  for:  he  was  to 
blame.  It  is  remarkable  that  even  Tyndale  did  not  dare  to  use  this  latter  form, 
which,  in  his  ignorance  of  Anglo-Saxon,  he  probably  took  for  a  vulgar  colloquial- 
ism; but  the  truer  philological  instinct  of  Shakespeare  did  not  scruple  to 
retain  the  phrase. 

We  have  still  several  corresponding  idioms.  Eranklin's  *  hats  to  sell '  is  an 
instance,  and :  '  it  is  to  seek  '  has  not  been  long  disused.  This  form  occurs  also 
in  Dutch,  and  it  is  curious  that  in  the  phrase:  te  zoek  zijn,  to  be  wanting,  to  be 
to  seek,  the  verb  tezoeken  has  dropped  the  old  ending  en,  as  in  English. 


Lect.  IX.  EOMAUNT   OF  THE   ROSE  445 

in  Chaucer's  time,  but  much  the  greater  proportion  of  them  had  been 
already  irrecoverably  lost,  and  hence,  independently  of  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  the  monuments  of  early  English  letters,  it  is  evident  that 
the  language  must  have  become  comparatively  poor  in  all  its  higher 
departments.  The  vocabulary  of  the  printed  literature  of  the  thirteenth 
century  consists  of  about  8,000  words,  of  which  not  far  from  7,000  are 
Anglo-Saxon.  Eejecting  words  of  foreign  origin,  and  what  are  obviously 
different  forms  of  the  same  vocable,  Bosworth's  Anglo-Saxon  Dictionary 
contains  something  less  than  twice  the  latter  number.  Neither  Cole- 
ridge nor  Bosworth  can  be  supposed  to  be  complete ;  but  if  we  assume 
that  the  one  is  as  nearly  so  as  the  other,  it  would  follow  that  one-half 
of  the  total  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary  had  been  lost  before  the  year  1300. 
But  as  Coleridge's  Glossarial  Index  is  confined  to  printed  books,  and 
Bosworth  embraces  most  known  Anglo-Saxon  manuscripts,  his  list  is 
probably  considerably  more  exhaustive  than  that  of  Coleridge.  Be- 
tween the  year  1300  and  Chaucer's  time,  there  was,  doubtless,  some 
further  loss,  and,  upon  the  whole,  I  think  it  quite  safe  to  say  that  at 
least  one-fourth,  and  in  all  probability  one-third,  of  the  words  com- 
posing the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue  were  utterly  forgotten  before  Chaucer 
had  written  a  line.  It  further  appears,  from  the  character  of  the  par- 
ticular words  which  I  have  shown  to  have  been  lost,  that  the  moral  and 
intellectual,  and  the  poetical  nomenclatures  were  the  portions  of  the 
vocabulary  which  had  suffered  most,  and  hence  that  a  new  supply  of 
terms  in  these  departments  was  an  imperious  necessity  for  all  the  pur- 
poses of  literary  culture. 

III. 

Chaucer's  additions  to  the  roman  de  la  rose. 

Sandras,  Etude  sur  Chaucer,  p.  38,  in  speaking  of  Chaucer's 
translation  of  the  Eoman  de  la  Rose,  observes :  '  NuUe  intention  de 
donner  au  Roman  de  la  Rose  une  couleur  nationale,  nuUe  intention  de 
I'embellir  ou  de  le  corriger.  Les  differences  qu'une  comparaison  scru- 
puleuse  pent  decouvrir  sont  insignifiantes,  et  ce  qu'on  a  pris  pour  des 
interpolations  se  lit  dans  les  manuscrits  complets.'  For  one  who  has 
had  no  opportunity  of  consulting  '  les  manuscrits  complets,'  it  is  difficult 
to  judge  how  far  they  sustain  this  broad  statement ;  but  the  passage 
referred  to  in  the  text,  which  I  think  few  readers  would  regard  as 
'  insignificant,'  is  not  found  either  in  Meon's  edition  of  the  text  of  De 
Lorris,  or  in  the  Dutch  translation  published  by  Kausler  in  Vol.  II.  of 
his  Denkmaler  Altniederlandischer  Sprache  und  Litteratur. 


446  KOMAUNT   OF   THE   ROSE  Lect.  IX. 

The  entire  passage  in  Moon's  edition  of  the  French  text,  vol.  i. 
pp.  83,  84,  stands  thus :  — 

2086.     Vilonnie  premierement, 

Ce  dist  Amors,  veil  et  commant 

Que  tu  guerpisses  sans  reprendre, 

Se  tu  ne  veulz  vers  moi  mesprendre ; 
2090.     Si  maudi  et  escommenie 

Tons  ceus  qui  aiment  vilonnie. 

Vilonnie  fait  li  vilains, 

Por  ce  n'est  pas  drois  que  ge  I'ains ; 

Viloins  est  fel  et  sans  pitie, 
2095.     Sans  servise  et  sans  amitie. 

Apres,  te  garde  de  retraire 

Chose  des  gens  qui  face  a  taire : 

N'est  pas  proesce  de  mesdire,  &c.  &c. 
Chaucer's  interpolation,  it  will  be  seen,  is  introduced  between  verses 
2095  and  2096.     In  the  Dutch  translation  the  passage  is  as  follows: 

2006.     Ic  verbiede  hu,  alle  dorperheide 

Te  loechene  eewelijc  sonder  hale, 

Vp  dat  ghi  mi  wilt  dienen  wale. 

Ic  ghebanne  ende  doe  bekinnen : 

Dorperhede,  alle  die  minne[n] 

Van  hem  te  doene,  verstaet  mie ; 

Dorpre  no  dorpernie  ne  gaerdic  nie, 

Want  si  fel  zijn  ende  sonder  ghenade, 

In  hem  te  hebben  valschen  rade ; 

Te  niemene  dracht  hi  minne 

So  quaderande  van  zinne. 

Wacht  hu  mede,  dat  ghi  niet  vertrect 

Dinghen,  die  willen  zijn  bedect, 

Ende  te  heelne,  dat  te  heelne  staet ; 

En  es  gheene  meesterie  te  seggen  quaet,  etc.  etc. 
This  translation  is  probably  older  than  that  of  Chaucer,  and  is  a  fair 
one,  though  I  cannot  agree  with  Kausler,  that  it  *  kann,  als  Ueber- 
tragung     betrachtet,     fiir    meisterhaft    gelten    und    darf   sich    dem 
Chaucer'schen  Versuche  kiihn  an  die  Seite  stellen.' 

The  omission  of  what  I  have  called  an  interpolation  of  Chaucer's, 
in  both  Meon's  text  and  in  this  old  Dutch  version,  is  certainly  prima- 
facie  evidence  that  it  is  an  addition  by  the  English  translator ;  and  we 
have  a  right  to  call  upon  those  who  affirm  that  his  supposed  amplifi- 


Lect.  IX.  ROMAUNT   OF   THE   ROSE  447 

cations  of  his  original  are  all  found  in  the  best  manuscripts,  to  produce 
their  texts  of  this  passage. 

I  take  this  occasion  to  call  the  attention  of  English  scholars  to  the 
great  interest  of  this  Dutch  translation,  and,  in  fact,  of  the  general 
Netherlandish  literature  of  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  which,  it  is  hardly  extravagant  to  say,  is  as  little  kno^vn  to 
English  and  American  scholars  as  that  of  China.  I  question  whether 
there  is  any  cognate  source  of  instruction  upon  early  English  philology 
and  etymology,  which,  if  properly  worked,  would  yield  a  richer  harvest. 

The  translation  in  question  does  not  conform  so  closely  to  Meon's  text 
as  does  that  of  Chaucer,  but  some  passages,  where  Chaucer  followed  a 
different  reading  from  that  text,  correspond  pretty  nearly  with  the 
Dutch.     Thus,  in  this  passage :  — 

21.     Within  my  twentie  yeere  of  age, 
When  that  love  taketh  his  courage 
Of  younge  folke,  I  wente  soone 
To  bed,  as  I  was  wont  to  doone : 
And  fast  I  slept,  and  in  sleeping 
Me  mette  such  a  swevening. 
That  liked  me  wondrous  wele. 
But  in  that  sweven  is  never  a  dele 
That  it  n'  is  afterward  befaU, 
Eight  as  this  dreame  woU  tell  us  all. 

Meon's  text  of  the  first  five  verses  of  the  corresponding  passage 
is:  — 

Ou  vintiesme  an  de  mon  aage, 

Ou  point  qu' Amors  prend  le  paage 

Des  Jones  gens,  couchiez  estoie 

Une  nuit,  si  cum  je  souloie, 

Et  me  dormoie  moult  forment,  etc.  etc. 
llie  Dutch :  — 

Te  minen  rechten  xx  jaren, 

Alse  minne  neemt  te  waren 

Van  ionghen  lieden  haren  cheins, 

So  lach  ic  in  een  groet  ghepeins 

Vp  mijn  bedde,  ende  wart  beuaen 

Met  eenen  slape  also  zaen,  etc.  etc. 
Chaucer  here  uses  soone  in  the  sense  of  early  in  the  evening  —  a 
meaning  mentioned  by   Gill,   as   I  have   noted  in  my  First  Series, 
Lecture  XXV.  p.  580  —  and  the  Dutch  zaen,  in  the  last  line  above 


448 


A   SERMON   AGAINST  MIEACLE-PLATS 


Lect.  IX. 


quoted,  corresponds  nearly  enough  to  render  it  highly  probable  that 
both  translators  followed  a  text  different  from  that  of  Meon,  which  does 
not  contain  the  same  idea.  It  is  singular  that  the  word  courage  or 
corage,  in  the  second  line  quoted  from  Chaucer,  should  have  been  so 
generally  misunderstood.  It  is,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  a  note  on  the 
word  courage  in  the  American  edition  of  the  first  volume  of  Wedg- 
wood's Etymological  Dictionary,  the  Low-Latin  coraagium  or  cora- 
gium,  prestationis  species,  a  due  or  tribute^  as  is  clearly  shown 
both  by  the  French  pa  age  and  the  Dutch  cheins. 


IV. 


A   SERMON   AGAINST   MIRACLE-PLAYS. 

Knowe  Jee,  Cristen  men,  that  as  Crist  God  and  man  is  bothe  weye, 
trewth,  and  lif,  as  seith  the  gospel  of  Jon,  weye  to  the  errynge,  trewth 
to  the  unknowyng  and  doutyng,  lif  to  the  strynge  to  hevene  and 
weryinge,  so  Crist  dude  nothinge  to  us  but  effectuely  in  weye  of 
mercy,  in  treuthe  of  ritwesnes,  and  in  lif  of  jildyng  everlastynge  joye 
for  oure  continuely  morning  and  sorwynge  in  this  valey  of  teeres.  In 
myraclis  therfore  that  Crist  dude  heere  in  erthe,  outher  in  hymsilf 
outlier  in  hise  seyntis,  weren  so  efectuel  and  in  ernest  done,  that  to 
synful  men  that  erren  thei  broujten  for^yvenesse  of  synne,  settynge 
hem  in  the  weye  of  rijt  beleve ;  to  doutouse  men  not  stedefast,  thei 
broujten  in  kunnying  to  betere  plesen  God  and  verry  hope  in  God  to 
been  stedefast  in  hym ;  and  to  the  wery  of  the  weye  of  God,  for  the 
grette  penaunce  and  suffraunce  of  the  trybulacioun  that  men  moten 
have  therinne,  thes  broujten  in  love  of  brynnynge  charite,  to  the 
whiche  alle  thing  is  lijt,  and  he  to  sufTere  dethe,  the  whiche  men 
most  dreden,  for  the  everlastynge  lyf  and  joye  that  men  moste  loven 
and  disiren,  of  the  whiche  thing  verry  hope  puttith  awey  alle  weri- 
nesse  heere  in  the  weye  of  God.  Thanne  sythen  myraclis  of  Crist 
and  of  hyse  seyntis  weren  thus  efFectuel,  as  by  oure  bileve  we  ben 
in  certeyn,  no  man  shulde  usen  in  bourde  and  pleye  the  myraclis  and 
werkis  that  Crist  so  ernystfuUy  wroujte  to  oure  helye ;  for  whoevere 
so  doth,  he  errith  in  the  byleve,  reversith  Crist,  and  scornyth  God. 
He  errith  in  the  bileve,  for  in  that  he  takith  the  most  precious  werkis 
of  God  in  pley  and  bourde,  and  so  takith  his  name  in  idil,  and  so 
mysusith  oure  bileve.  A !  Lord  !  sythen  an  erthely  servaunt  dar  not 
taken  in  pley  and  in  bourde  that  that  her  erthely  lord  takith  in  ernest, 
myche  more  we  shulden  not  maken  oure  pleye  and  bourde  of  tho 


Lect.  IX.  A   SERMON   AGAINST   MIRACLE-PLATS  449 

myraclis  and  werkis  that  God  so  ernestfully  wrou;^t  to  us ;  for  sothely 
whan  we  so  done,  drede  to  synne  is  taken  awey,  as  a  servaunt  whan 
he  boiirdith  with  his  mayster  leesith^  his  drede  to  ofFendyn  hym, 
namely,  whanne  he  bourdith  with  his  mayster  in  th  t  nd  that  his 
mayster  takith  in  ernest. 

An  half  frynde  tariere  to  soule  helthe,  redy  to  excusen  the  yvil  and 
hard  of  bileve,  with  Thomas  of  Ynde,  seith,  that  he  wil  not  leevyn  the 
forseyd  sentense  of  myraclis  pleyinge,  but  and  men  schewen  it  hym  bi 
holy  writt  opynly  and  by  oure  bileve.  Wherfore  that  his  half 
frenschip  may  be  turnyd  to  the  hoole,  we  prey  en  hym  to  beholden  first 
in  the  seconde  maundement  of  God  that  seith  '  Thou  schalt  not  take 
Goddis  name  in  idil ; '  and  sythen  the  mervelous  werkis  of  God  ben 
his  name,  as  the  gode  werkis  of  craftesman  been  his  name,  than  in  this 
hest  of  God  is  forbeden  to  takun  the  mervelouse  werkis  of  God  in  idil ; 
and  how  mowen  thei  be  more  takyn  in  idil  than  whanne  thei  ben 
maad  mennus  japynge  stikke,  as  Avhen  thei  ben  pleyid  of  japeris  ? 
And  sythen  ernestly  God  dyde  hem  to  us,  so  take  we  hem  of  hym  ; 
ellis  fosothe  we  taken  hem  in  veyn.  Loke  thanne,  frend,  jif  thi  byleve 
tellith  that  God  dide  his  myraclis  to  us  for  we  shulden  pleyn  hem,  and 
yn  trowe  it  seith  to  the,  '  nay,  but  for  thou  schuldist  more  dredyn  hym 
and  lovyn  hym,'  and  certis  greet  drede  and  gret  effectuel  loove  sufFrith 
no  pleyinge  nor  japyng  with  hym.  Thanne  sythen  myraclis  pleyinge 
reversith  the  wille  of  God,  and  the  ende  for  the  which  be  wrou^t 
myraclis  to  us,  no  doute  but  that  myraclis  pleyinge  is  verre  takyng 
of  Goddis  name  in  ydil.  And  ^if  this  suffisith  not  to  thee,  albeit  that 
it  shulde  suffisen  to  an  hethene  man,  that  therefore  Avil  not  pley  in  the 
werkis  of  his  mawmete,  I  preye  thee  rede  enterly  in  the  book  of  lyf 
that  is  Crist  Jhesus,  and  if  thou  mayst  fynden  in  hym  that  he  evere 
exsaumplide  that  men  shulden  pleye  myraclis,  but  alwey  the  revers, 
and  oure  byleve  cursith  that  ladden  or  lassen  over  that  Crist  exsaum- 
plide us  to  don.  Hou  thanne  darst  thou  holden  with  myraclis  pleyinge, 
sythen  alle  the  werkis  of  Crist  reversiden  hem,  and  in  none  of  his 
werkis  thei  ben  groundyd?  namely,  sythen  thou  seyst  thiselven  that 
thou  wolt  nothing  leven  but  that  may  be  schewid  of  oure  bileve,  and 
sythen  in  thing  that  is  acordyng  with  the  flessh  and  to  the  likyng  of  it, 
as  is  myraclis  pleyinge,  thou  wilt  nothing  don  ajenus  it,  but  jif  it  be 
schewid  of  oure  bileve ;  myche  more  in  thing  that  is  with  the  spirit, 
and  alwey  exsawmplid  in  the  lif  of  Christ,  and  so  fully  writen  in  the 
booke  of  lif,  as  is  levyng  of  myraclis  pleyinge  and  of  alle  japyng,  thou 
shuldest  not  holden  ajenys  it,  but  if  it  myjte  ben  schewid  ajens  the 

G  G 


450  A  SERMON   AGAINST   MIRACLE-PLATS  Lect.  IX. 

bileve,  sytlien  in  al  tliyng  that  is  dowtous  men  shulden  holden  with 
the  partye  that  is  more  favowrable  to  the  spirit,  and  more  exsawmpplid 
in  the  lif  of  Christ;  and  so  as  eche  synne  distruyith  hymsilf,  and  eche 
falshed,  so  thi  answere**  distruyith  hymsilfe,  and  therby  thou  mayst 
wel  witen  that  it  is  not  trewe,  but  verre  unkyndenesse ;  for  if  thou 
haddist  hadde  a  fadir  that  hadde  suffred  a  dispitouse  deth  to  geten  thee 
thyn  heritage,  and  thou  therafter  woldest  so  li^tly  bern  it  to  make 
therof  a  pley  to  the  and  to  alle  the  puple,  no  dowte  but  that  alle  gode 
men  wolden  demyen  the  unkynde,  miche  more  God  and  alle  his  seyntis 
demyen  alle  tho  cristen  men  unkynde  that  pleyen  or  favouren  the  pley 
of  the  deth  or  of  the  myracles  of  the  most  kynde  fadir  Crist,  that  dyede 
and  wroujte  myraclis  to  bryngen  men  to  the  evere-lastande  heretage  of 
hevene. 

Therfore  siche  myraclis  pleyinge  now  on  dayes  witnessith  thre 
thingis,  first,  is  grete  synne  byforne  the,  second,  it  witnessith  grete  foly 
in  the  doinge,  and  the  thridde  greet  venjaunse  aftir ;  for  rijt  as  the 
chyldren  of  Israel,  Avhan  Moyses  was  in  the  hil  bisily  preyinge  for  hem, 
thei  mystristyng  to  hym,  honouriden  a  calf  of  gold,  and  afterAvard  eetyn 
and  drinken  and  risen  to  pleyn,  and  afterward  weren  sleyn  of  hem  thre 
and  twenty  thowscnd  of  men ;  so  thanne  as  this  pleyinge  wittnesside 
the  synne  of  ther  maumetrie  beforn,  and  her  mystryst  to  Moyses 
whanne  thei  shulde  most  han  tristenede  to  hym,  and  after  ther  foly  in 
ther  pleyinge,  and  the  thridde  the  venjaunse  that  cam  after ;  so  this 
myraclis  pleyinge  is  verre  witnesse  of  mennus  averice  and  coveytise 
byfore,  that  is  maumetrie,  as  seith  the  apostele,  for  that  that  thei 
shulden  spendyn  upon  the  nedis  of  ther  nejeboris,  thei  spenden  upon 
the  pleyis,  and  to  peyen  ther  rente  and  ther  dette  thei  wolen  grucche, 
and  to  spende  two  so  myche  upon  ther  pley  thei  Avolen  nothing  grucche. 
Also  to  gideren  men  togidcre  to  bien  the  derre  ther  vetailis,  and  to 
stiren  men  to  glotonye,  and  to  pride  and  boost,  thei  pleyn  thes  myraclis, 
and  also  to  han  wherof  to  spenden  on  these  myraclis,  and  to  holde 
felawschipe  of  glotenye  and  lecherie  in  sich  dayes  of  myraclis  pleyinge, 
thei  bisien  hem  beforn  to  more  gredily  bygilen  ther  ne^^bors,  in  byinge 
and  in  sellying ;  and  so  this  pleyinge  of  myraclis  now  on  dayes  is  werre 
witnesse  of  hideous  ceveytise,  that  is  maumetrie.  And  ri^t  as  Moyses 
was  that  tyme  in  the  hil  most  travelynge  aboute  the  puple,  so  now  is 
Crist  in  hevene  with  his  fader  most  bisily  preyinge  for  the  puple  ;  and 
never  the  latere  as  the  chlyndren  (sic)  of  Israel  diden  that  tyme  that 
in  hem  was,  in  ther  pleyinge  of  ther  maumetrie,  most  folily  to  distrojen 
the  grete  travele  of  Moyses,  so  men  now  on  dayees,  after  ther  hidouse 


Lect.  IX.  A   SEBMON   AGAINST  MIKACLE-PLATS  451 

maumetree  of  covetyse  in  ther  pleyinge  of  myraclis,  thei  don  that  in 
hem  is  to  distroje  the  ententive  preyere  of  Crist  in  hevene  for  hem, 
and  so  ther  myraclis  pleyinge  Avitnessith  ther  most  folye  in  ther  doynge, 
and  therfore  as  unkyndely  seiden  to  Aaron  the  children  of  Israel, 
Moyses  beinge  in  the  hil,  '■  we  witen  never  how  it  is  of  Moyses,  make 
us  therfore  Goddis  that  gon  biforn  us,'  so  unkyndeli  seyen  men  nowe 
on  dayes,  '  Crist  doth  now  no  myraclis  for  us,  pley  we  therfore  his 
olde,'  addyng  many  lesynges  therto  so  colowrably  that  the  puple  jife  as 
myche  credense  to  hem  as  to  the  trwthe,  and  so  thei  forjeten  to  ben 
percever  of  the  preyere  of  Crist,  for  the  maumetrye  that  men  don  to 
siche  myraclis  pleyinge  ;  maumetrye,  I  seye,  for  siche  pleyinge  men 
as  myche  honoryn  or  more  than  the  word  of  God  whanne  it  is  prechid, 
and  therefore  blasfemely  thei  seyen,  that  siche  pleyinge  doith  more 
good  than  the  word  of  God  wanne  it  is  prechid  to  the  puple.  A I 
Lord !  what  more  blasfeme  is  ajenus  thee,  than  to  seyen  to  don  the 
byddyng,  as  is  to  prechen  the  word  of  God  doth  fer  lasse  good  than  to 
don  that  that  is  bodyn  onely  by  man  and  not  by  God,  as  is  myraclis 
pleying  ?  Eit  forsothe,  as  the  lyknesse  of  myraclis  we  clepen  myraclis, 
rijt  so  the  golden  calfe  the  children  of  Israel  clepiden  it  God ;  in  the 
whiche  thei  liadden  mynde  of  the  olde  myraclis  of  God  beforn,  and  for 
that  licnesse  thei  worschipiden  and  preyseden,  as  thei  worschipiden 
and  presiden  God  in  the  dede  of  his  myraclis  to  hem,  and  therefore 
thei  diden  expresse  maumetrye.  So  sythen  now  on  daies  myche  of  the 
puple  worschipith  and  preysith  onely  the  licnesse  of  the  myraclis  of 
God,  as  myche  as  the  worde  of  God  in  the  prechours  mowtli  by  the 
whiche  alle  myraclis  be  don,  no  dowte  that  ne  the  puple  doth  more 
mawmetrie  now  in  siche  myraclis  pleyinge  than  dide  the  puple  of 
Israel  that  tyme  in  heryinge  of  the  calf,  in  as  myche  as  the  lesynges 
and  lustus  of  myraclis  pleyinge  that  men  worschipen  in  hem  is  more 
contrarious  to  God,  and  more  acordynge  Avith  the  devil,  than  was  that 
golden  calf  that  the  puple  worschipid.  And  therefore  the  maumetrye 
that  tyme  was  but  figure  and  licknesse  of  mennus  maumetrye  nowe, 
and  therfore  seith  the  apostel,  asse  thes  thingis  in  figure  fellen  to  hem, 
and  therefore  in  siche  myraclis  pleyinge  the  devel  is  most  plesid,  as  the 
dyvel  is  best  payid  to  disceyve  men  in  the  licnesse  of  that  thing  in 
whiche  by  God  man  weren  convertid  biforhond,  and  in  whiche  the 
devel  was  tenyd  byfornhond.  Therfore  oute  of  doute  siche  myraclis 
pleying  pretith  myche  more  venjaunce  than  dide  the  pleyinge  of  the 
chyldren  of  Israel,  after  the  heriynge  of  the  calf,  as  this  pleyinge  settith 
but  japes  grettere  and  more  benfetes  of  God. 


G  O    2 


452  RECORDS   OF   COMMON   LIFE  Lect.  IX. 

V. 

RECORDS  OF   COMMON  LIFE. 

I  have  somewhere  seen  it  stated  that  Trevisa's  manuscript  of  his 
translation  of  Glanvilla  de  Proprietatibus  Eenim  is  still  in  existence. 
Philologically  speaking,  an  edition  of  a  work  of  this  character  would 
be  more  valuable  than  a  chronicle  or  a  poem  of  equal  extent.  The 
variety  of  subjects  discussed  by  Glanville  supposes  a  correspondingly 
extensive  vocabulary,  and  a  greater  range  of  verbal  combination  than 
would  be  likely  to  occur  in  historical  narrative,  or  in  poetry,  the 
dialect  of  which  is  more  conventional  than  that  of  prose.  It  is  to 
works  on  natural  knowledge,  and  which  connect  themselves  with  prac- 
tical life,  that  we  are  chiefly  to  look  for  information  upon  the  actual 
speech  of  bygone  ages,  and  especially  upon  historical  etymology — the 
true  story  of  the  metamorphoses  and  migrations  of  words. 

Grammaticasters  seek  the  history  of  language  in  written,  and  espe- 
cially in  elegant  literature;  but,  except  in  the  fleeting  dialect  of 
pedants,  linguistic  change  and  progress  begin  in  oral  speech,  and  it  is 
long  before  the  pen  takes  up  and  records  the  forms  and  Avords  which 
have  become  established  in  the  living  tongue. 

If  you  would  know  the  present  tendencies  of  English,  go,  as  Luther 
did,  to  the  market  and  the  workshop ;  you  will  there  hear  new  words 
and  combinations,  which  orators  and  poets  will  adopt  in  a  future 
generation ;  and  in  investigating  the  philological  history  of  past  ages, 
whose  market-places  are  grass-grown,  and  the  hum  of  whose  industry 
is  stilled,  you  must  resort  to  those  written  memorials  whose  subjects 
most  nearly  approximate  to  the  busy  every-day  life  of  their  time. 

That  literature  which  best  preserves  the  unpremeditated,  half-uncon- 
scious verbal  expression  of  humanity  is  richest  in  true  philological 
instruction,  as  it  is  in  its  revelations  of  the  intellect  and  the  heart  of 
man :  hence  the  great  value  and  the  profound  interest  of  old  familiar 
letters,  journals,  private  records  of  all  sorts.  Precisely  the  disclosures 
we  shrink  most  from  making  with  respect  to  ourselves,  and  the  out- 
spoken expressions  we  are  shyest  in  using,  attract  us  most  in  the  life 
of  distant  ages.  The  most  insignificant  original  memorial  of  the  actual 
words  of  a  living  man  has  an  imperishable  worth  to  remote  posterity. 
Refined  and  sensitive  persons  destroy  their  family  letters,  and  are  re- 
luctant to  record  their  names  in  the  albums  of  paper  and  of  stone  with 
which  all  places  of  resort  abound ;  but,  though  Ave  may  not  approve  tho 
vanity  which  led  a  distinguished  author  to  have  his  name  carved  on 


Lect.  IX.  OLD   RECORDS  453 

the  summit  of  a  pyramid  he  did  not  climb,  I  think  no  traveller  looks 
on  the  record  of  a  visit  to  one  of  the  tombs  of  the  Egyptian  kings  by 
an  ancient  Greek — who  expresses  his  disappointment  at  finding  nothing 
to  admire,  ei  fxi]  tuv  Xifiov — or  at  the  inscription  rudely  cut  on  the  legs 
of  a  gigantic  statue  at  the  entrance  of  the  great  rock-temple  of  Abou 
Simbel,  to  commemorate  the  halt  of  a  detachment  of  Eoman  soldiery 
sent  up  into  Nubia  in  search  of  deserters — or  even  at  the  bare  name 
which,  three  hundred  years  ago,  the  old  herbalist,  Belon,  scratched 
with  the  point  of  his  dagger  on  the  smoky  wall  of  a  convent  kitchen, 
now  in  ruins,  in  Arabia  Petreea — without  feeling  that  he  has  added 
to  his  stores  of  knowledge  both  a  historical  fact  and  a  '  form  of  words,' 
which  will  adhere  to  his  memory  when  many  an  eloquent  phrase  shall 
have  vanished  from  it. 


LECTUEE  X. 

THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATUEE  FEOM  THE 
BEGINNING  OP  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY  TO  THE  TIME 
OF   CAXTON. 

When  the  political  and  mental  agitations  of  the  fourteenth 
century  —  which  had  been,  if  not  occasioned,  at  least  greatly 
increased  by  the  antipapal  schism  —  had  once  subsided,  the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  the  age  of  Langlande  and  Wycliffe  and 
Chaucer  suddenly  ceased,  and  was  followed  by  a  long  period  of 
repose,  or  perhaps  I  might  rather  say,  of  lethargy.  The  literary 
monuments  we  possess  of  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century 
exhibit  few  traces  of  original  power.  In  some  of  them,  even 
the  language  seems  to  have  rather  retrograded  than  advanced ; 
nor  did  it  manifest  much  substantial  progress,  until  the  new 
life,  which  the  invention  of  printing  infused  into  literature, 
made  itself  felt  in  England. 

The  English  mind,  brilliant  as  were  its  achievements  in  the 
era  we  have  just  passed  over,  was  not  yet  so  thoroughly  roused 
and  enlivened,  that  it  was  able  to  go  on  in  the  path  of  creative 
literature  by  its  own  inherent  energies.  It  still  required  external 
impulse ;  and  it  was  only  by  the  succession  of  electric  shocks  it 
received  from  the  four  greatest  events  in  modern  history,  which 
so  rapidly  followed  each  other  —  the  invention  of  printing,  the 
discovery  of  the  passage  around  the  Cape  of  Grood  Hope,  and  of 
the  American  continent,  and  the  Reformation — that  it  was  fully 
awakened  and  inspired  with  that  undying  energy  which,  for 
three  hundred  years,  has  filled  the  world  with  its  renown. 


Lect.  X.  THOMAS   OCCLEVE  455 

The  first  important  poetical  writer  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
whose  works  have  come  dowTi  to  us,  is  Thomas  Occleve,  a 
lawyer,  who  is  supposed  to  have  flourished  about  the  year  1420. 
Most  of  his  works  exist  only  in  manuscript,  and  those  that  have 
been  printed  are  not  of  a  character  to  inspire  a  very  lively 
desire  for  the  publication  of  the  remainder.  They  are  princi- 
pally didactic,  and  in  great  part  translations,  the  most  important 
of  them  being  a  treatise  on  the  Art  of  Grovernment,  taken 
principally  from  a  Latin  work  of  Egidius,  a  Eoman  writer  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  The  diction  of  Occleve  is  modelled 
after  that  of  Chaucer,  of  whom  he  professes  to  have  been  a 
pupil,  but  there  are  some  grammatical  differences,  the  most 
noticeable  of  them  being  the  constant  omission  of  the  n  final  in 
the  infinitive  mood,,  and  in  the  third  person  plural  of  the  verbs. 
This,  though  not  uncommon,  was  but  of  occasional,  or  at  least 
of  very  irregular  occurrence  in  the  preceding  century. 

I  can  find  nothing  better  worthy  of  citation  from  this  author 
than  his  lamentation  upon  Chaucer,  which  Warton  gives  from 
an  unpublished  manuscript : 

But  weleawaye,  so  is  myne  herte  wo, 

That  the  honour  of  English  tonge  is  dede, 

Of  which  I  wont  was  han  counsel  and  rede  ! 

O  mayster  dere,  and  fadir  reverent, 

My  mayster  Chaucer,  floure  of  eloquence, 

Mirrour  of  fructuous  entendement, 

O  universal  fadir  in  science, 

Alas,  that  thou  thine  excellent  prudence 

In  thy  bed  mortel  miglitest  not  bequethe  ! 

"What  eyled  Deth  ?     Alas  why  would  he  sle  the  ! 

O  Deth  that  didist  nought  harm  singulere 

In  slaughtre  of  him,  but  all  the  lond  it  smertith  : 

But  natheless,  yet  hastowe  no  powere 

His  name  to  sle.     His  hie  vertue  astertith 

Unslayn  from  thee,  which  aye  us  lifely  hertith. 

With  boke[s]  of  his  ornate  enditing. 

That  is  to  all  this  lond  enlumjning. 

The  versification  of  this  extract  is  interesting  as  showing  that 


456  E  FINAL  Lect.  X. 

the  e  final,  which  seems  to  have  become  silent  soon  after,  was 
still  pronounced  in  Occleve's  time,  at  least  in  poetry,  as  it  had 
been  in  Chaucer's;  for  bequeath,  spelt  bequethe,  is  made  to 
rhyme  to  sle  the  — 

In  thy  bed  mortel  mightest  not  bequethe! 

What  eyied  Deth  ?     Alas  why  would  he  sle  the  ? 

The  e  final,  which  is  mute  in  prose,  is  still  counted  in  French 
versification,  and  not  unfrequently  requires  a  prosodical  accent, 
though  in  actual  reading  of  poetry,  it  is  not  much  dwelt  upon. 
That  it  was  once  normally  articulated  in  prose,  in  both  English 
and  French,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  At  what  period  it  became 
silent  in  either,  it  is  difficult  to  determine,  partly  because 
orthogfaphy  seldom  accurately  represents  orthoepy,  and  partly 
because  the  change,  like  other  orthoepical  and  grammatical 
revolutions,  came  in  gradually,  and  locally,  so  that  while  one 
province  or  writer  in  a  given  century  may  have  dropped  the  e, 
another  may  have  retained  it  many  years  later.  The  cause  of 
the  loss  of  this  articulation  is  the  same  in  both  languages, 
namely,  the  tendency  of  both  to  discard  inflectional  syllables  — 
a  tendency  much  aggravated  in  English  by  the  confusion  intro- 
duced into  its  grammar  through  a  mixture  of  unrelated  tongues 
discordant  in  their  accidences. 

Changes  of  this  sort  are  not  received  in  literature  until  they 
have  been  long  established  in  speech,  and  the  fact,  that  in 
French  poetry  the  e  final  still  counts  as  a  syllable,  while  it  has 
been  null  in  English  verse  for  certainly  three  centuries,  would 
seem  to  imply  that  it  continued  to  be  colloquially  pronounced 
in  France  much  longer  than  in  England. 

Contemporaneously  with  Occleve  lived  James  I.  of  Scotland, 
who  was  illegally  seized,  in  his  early  childhood,*  by  Henry  IV. 

*  There  is  a  good  deal  of  discrepancy  among  the  authorities  as  to  the  date  of 
King  James's  capture  —  or  rather  as  to  his  age  at  the  time  —  and  the  duration  of 
his  imprisonment.  In  the  third  and  fifth  stanzas  of  the  second  canto  of  the 
Kings  Quair,  the  king  himself  says  that  he  was  taken  prisoner  at  the  age  of 


LeCT.  X.  JAMES  I.    OF   SCOTLAND  457 

of  England  in  the  year  1405,  and  kept  for  nearly  twenty  years 
a  prisoner.  His  captor  caused  him  to  be  well  educated,  and 
besides  several  pieces  written,  as  it  is  said,  unequivocally  in  the 
Scottish  dialect  —  the  criticism  of  which  does  not  come  within 
the  plan  of  this  course  —  he  wrote,  in  English,  as  it  seems,  a 
poem  in  about  fourteen  hundred  lines,  called  the  King's  Quair, 
or  book.  This  is  a  eulogistic  rhapsody  on  the  Lady  Jane  Beau- 
three,  and  in  the  sixth  stanza  of  the  same  canto,  he  states  that  he  had  already 
been  imprisoned  eighteen  years,  when  he  first  saw  his  mistress : — 

III. 
Not  far  passit  the  state  of  innocence 

But  nere  about  the  nowmer  of  zeiris  thre, 
"Were  it  causit  throu  hevinly  influence 

Of  Goddis  will,  or  other  casualtee,  » 

Can  I  not  say,  bot  out  of  my  contree, 

By  thair  avise  y*  had  of  me  the  cure 

Be  see  to  pas,  tuke  I  my  aventure. 


Upon  the  wevis  weltring  to  and  fro, 
So  infortunate  was  we  that  fremyt  day, 

That  maugre  plainly  quethir  we  wold  or  no, 
W  strong  hand  by  forse  schortly  to  say, 

Of  inymyis  taken  and  led  away, 
We  weren  all,  and  bro*  in  thaire  contree, 
Fortune  it  schupe  non  othir  wayis  to  be. 


Quhare  as  in  strayte  ward,  and  in  strong  prison, 

So  fere  forth  of  my  lyf  the  hevy  lyne, 
W*out  confort  in  sorowe,  abandoune 

The  secund  sistere,  lukit  hath  to  tuyne, 
Nere,  by  the  space  of  zeris  twice  nyne, 

Till  Jupiter  his  merci  list  advert. 

And  send  confort  in  relesche  of  my  smert. 

In  Holinshed's  History  of  Scotland,  reprint  of  1808,  vol.  xi.  p.  407,  it  is  said: 
'taken  he  was  in  the  ninth  yeare  of  his  age,  the  33  (sic)  day  of  March,  in  the 
yeare  of  our  incarnacion  1406,  and  was  kept  in  captivitie  of  the  Englishmen  by 
the  space  of  eighteene  yeares.'  On  page  426,  the  king  is  said  to  have  been 
murdered  on  the  21  of  February  1436,  '  in  the  44  yeere  of  his  age.'  If  King 
James  was  forty-three  years  old  in  1436,  he  must  have  bfHjn  more  than  eight  in 
1406,  and  upon  the  whole  I  think  it  safer  to  follow  King  James's  own  chronology 
than  that  of  historical  compilers. 


458  JAMES  I.    OF   SCOTLAND  Lect.  X. 

fort,  whom  King  James  afterwards  married ;  and  though  its 
subject  and  purpose  did  not  give  room  for  much  fertility  of 
invention,  it  is  full  of  delicacy,  grace  and  feeling,  smooth  and 
artistic  in  versification,  and,  in  general  poetic  merit,  superior  to 
any  other  English  verse  of  the  fifteenth  or  even  the  first  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

The  dialect  is  remarkable  both  for  the  occasional  introduction 
of  Scandinavian  words  and  forms  —  reminiscences,  possibly,  of 
the  author's  childhood,  which  was  used  to  a  dialect  much  modified 
by  Northern  influences  —  and  especially  for  its  freedom  from  all 
French  terms  and  idioms  which  had  not  been  fairly  naturalized 
in  English.  The  proportion  of  Eomance  words  in  the  King's 
Quair  is  scarcely  greater  than  in  the  works  of  Chaucer  or  of  Gower, 
and,  as*  in  those  authors,  we  find  that  most  of  them  are  intro- 
duced rather  for  the  sake  of  rhyme  and  metre,  than  for  any 
superior  adaptedness  to  poetical  expression.  His  description  of 
the  lady  of  whom  he  was  enamoured  is  worth  quoting  at  length : 

And  therew*  keft  I  doun  myn  eye  ageyne, 

Quhare  as  I  faw  walkyng  under  the  Toure, 
Full  fecretely,  new  cumyn  hir  to  pleyne, 

The  faireft  or  the  frefcheft  zoung  floure 
That  ever  I  fawe,  metho*,  before  that  houre, 

For  quhich  fodayne  abate,  anon  aftert, 

The  blude  of  all  my  body  to  my  hert. 

And  though  I  flood  abaifit  tho  a  lyte, 

No  wonder  was ;  for  quhy  ?  my  wittis  all 
"Were  fo  ouercome  w'  plefance  and  delyte, 

Only  through  latting  of  myn  eyen  fall, 
That  fudaynly  my  hert  become  hir  thrall, 

For  ever  of  free  wyll,  for  of  manace 

There  was  no  takyn  in  hir  fuete  face. 

And  in  my  hede  I  drew  ry*  haftily, 

And  eft  Tones  I  lent  it  out  ageyne. 
And  faw  hir  walk  that  verray  womanly, 

"With  no  wight  mo,  hot  only  Avomen  tueyne, 
Than  gan  I  ftudy  in  myfelf  and  feyne. 

Ah  !  fuete  are  ze  a  warldly  creature, 

Or  hevingly  thing  in  likenefle  of  nature  ? 


Lect.  X.  JAMES  I.   OF   SCOTLAND  459 

Or  ar  ze  god  Cupidis  owin  princefle  ? 

And  cumyn  are  to  loufe  me  out  of  band, 
Or  are  ze  veray  Nature  the  goddeffe, 

That  have  depayntit  w*  zour  hevinly  hand, 
This  gardyn  full  of  flouris,  as  they  ftand  ? 

Quhat  fall  I  think,  allace  !  quhat  reverence 

Sail  I  mefter  to  zour  excellence  ? 
GifT  ze  a  goddefle  be,  and  y*  ze  like 

To  do  me  payne,  I  may  it  not  aftert ; 
Giff  ze  be  warldly  wight,  y*  dooth  me  fike, 

Quhy  left  God  mak  zou  fo  my  dereft  hert, 
To  do  a  fely  prifoner  thus  fmert, 

That  lufis  zou  all,  and  wote  of  no*  but  wo, 

And,  therefore,  merci  fuete  !  fen  it  is  fo. 
Quhen  I  a  lytill  thrawe  had  maid  my  mone, 

Bewailing  myn  infortune  and  my  chance, 
Unknawin  how  or  quhat  was  beft  to  done, 

So  ferre  I  fallying  into  lufis  dance, 
That  fodeynly  my  wit,  my  contenance. 

My  hert,  my  will,  my  nature,  and  my  mynd, 

Was  changit  clene  ry*  in  ane  other  kind. 
Of  hir  array  the  form  gif  I  fal  write. 

Toward  her  goldin  haire,  and  rich  atyre, 
In  fretwife  couchit  w*  perils  quhite. 

And  grete  balas  lemyng  as  the  fyre, 
W*  mony  ane  emerant  and  faire  faphire. 

And  on  hir  hede  a  chaplet  frefch  of  hewe, 

Of  plumys  partit  rede,  and  quhite,  and  blewe. 
Full  of  quaking  fpangis  bry*  as  gold, 

Forgit  of  fchap  like  to  the  amorettis, 
So  new,  fo  frefch,  fo  pleafant  to  behold. 

The  plumys  eke  like  to  the  floure  jonettjs. 
And  other  of  fchap,  like  to  the  floure  jonettis; 

And,  above  all  this,  there  was,  wele  I  wote, 

Beautee  eneuch  to  mak  a  world  to  dote. 
About  hir  neck,  quhite  as  the  fyre  amaille, 

A  gudelie  cheyne  of  fmall  orfeverye, 
Quhare  by  there  hang  a  ruby,  w*out  faille 

Like  to  ane  hert  fchapin  verily. 
That,  as  a  fperk  of  lowe  fo  wantonly 

Semyt  birnyng  upon  hir  quhite  throte. 

Now  gif  there  was  gud  pertye,  God  it  wote. 


460  JAMES  I.    OF   SCOTLAND  Lect.  X. 

And  for  to  walk  that  frefche  Mayes  morowe, 

Ane  huke  fhe  had  upon  her  tiflew  qnhite, 
That  gudeliare  had  not  bene  fene  to  forowe, 

As  I  fuppofe,  and  girt  fche  was  alyte ; 
Thus  halflyng  lowfe  for  hafte,  to  fuich  delyte, 

It  was  to  fee  her  zouth  in  gudelihed, 

That  for  rudenes  to  fpeke  thereof  I  drede. 
In  hir  was  zouth,  beautee,  w*  humble  aport, 

Bountee,  richelTe,  and  womanly  faiture, 
God  better  wote  than  my  pen  can  report, 

Wifdome,  largefTe  eftate,  and  conyng  fare 
In  every  point,  fo  guydit  hir  mefure, 

In  word,  in  dede,  in  fchap,  in  contenance, 

That  nature  my*  no  more  hir  childe  auance. 
Throw  quhich  anon  I  kn^w  and  underftude 

Wele  y*  fche  was  a  warldly  creature, 
On  quhom  to  reft  myn  eye,  fo  mich  gude 

It  did  my  wofiil  hert,  I  zow  affure 
That  it  was  to  me  joye  w*out  mefure. 

And,  at  the  laft,  my  luke  unto  the  hevin 

I  threwe  furthwith,  and  faid  thir  verfis  fevin : 
0  Venus  clere  !  of  goddis  ftellifyit, 

To  quhom  I  zelde  homage  and  facrifife, 
Fro  this  day  forth  zour  grace  be  magnifyit, 

That  me  reffauit  have  in  fuch  wife, 
To  lyve  under  zour  law  and  fo  feruife ; 

Now  help  me  furth,  and  for  zour  merci  lede 

My  hert  to  reft,  y*  deis  nere  for  drede. 
Quhen  I  w*  gude  entent  this  orifon 

Thus  endit  had,  I  ftynt  a  lytill  ftound, 
And  eft  myn  eye  full  pitoufly  adoun 

I  keft,  behalding  unto  hir  lytill  hound, 
That  w*  his  bellis  playit  on  the  ground, 

Than  wold  I  fay,  and  figh  therew*  a  lyte, 

Ah  !  wele  were  him  y*  now  were  in  thy  plyte  ! 
An  othir  quhile  the  lytill  nyghtingale. 

That  fat  upon  the  twiggis,  wold  I  chide. 
And  fay  ry*  thus,  Quhare  are  thy  notis  fmale, 

That  thou  of  love  has  fong  this  morowe  tyde  ? 
Seis  thou  not  hir  y*  fittis  the  befyde  ? 

Ffor  Venus'  fake,  the  blisfull  goddelTe  clcre, 

Smg  on  agane,  and  mak  my  Lady  chere. 


Lect.  X.  JAMES  I.    OP   SCOTLAND  461 

And  eke  I  pray,  for  all  the  paynes  grete, 

That,  for  the  love  of  Proigne,  thy  filler  dere, 

Thou  fufFerit  quhilom,  quhen  thy  brellis  wete 
Were  with  the  teres  of  thyne  eyen  clere, 

All  bludy  ronne  y*  pitee  was  to  here, 
The  crueltee  of  that  unkny^ly  dede, 
Quhare  was  fro  the  bereft  thy  maidenhede. 

Lift  up  thyne  hert,  and  fing  w*  gude  entent, 
And  in  thy  notis  fuete  the  trefon  telle, 

That  to  thy  filler  trewe  and  innocent, 
Was  kythit  by  hir  hufband  flilfe  and  fell, 

Ffor  quhois  gilt,  as  it  is  worthy  well, 
Chide  thir  hufbandis  y*  are  falfe,  I  fay, 
And  bid  them  mend  in  the  XX  deuil  way. 

0  lytill  wreich,  allace  !  maifl  thou  not  fe 

Quho  comyth  zond  ?     Is  it  now  time  to  wring  ? 
Quhat  fory  tho*  is  fallin  upon  the  ? 

Opyn  thy  throte ;  hallow  no  left  to  fing  ? 
Allace  !  fen  thou  of  refon  had  felyng, 

Now,  fwete  bird  lay  ones  to  me  pepe, 

I  dee  for  wo ;  me  think  thou  gynis  flepe. 
Haftow  no  mynde  of  lufe  ?  quhare  is  thy  make  ? 

Or  artow  feke,  or  fmyt  w*  jeloufye? 
Or  is  fche  dede,  or  hath  fche  the  forfake  ? 

Quhat  is  the  caufe  of  thy  melancolye, 
That  thou  no  more  lift  maken  melodye  ? 

Sluggart,  for  fchame  !  lo  here  thy  golden  houre 

That  worth  were  hale  all  thy  lyvis  laboure. 
Gif  thou  fuld  fing  wele  ever  in  thy  lyve. 

Here  is,  in  fay,  the  time,  and  eke  the  fpace : 
Quhat  woftow  then  ?     Sum  bird  may  cum  and  ftryve 

In  fong  \Y^  the,  the  maiftry  to  purchace. 
Suld  thou  than  cefl^e,  it  were  great  fchame  allace, 

And  here  to  wyn  gree  happily  for  ever ; 

Here  is  the  tyme  to  fyng,  or  ellis  never. 

1  tho*  eke  thus  gif  I  my  handis  clap. 

Or  gif  I  caft,  than  will  fche  flee  away ; 
And,  gif  I  hald  my  pes,  than  will  fche  nap ; 

And  gif  I  crye,  fche  wate  not  quhat  I  fay : 
Thus  quhat  is  beft,  wate  I  not  be  this  day, 

Bot  blawe  wynd,  blawe,  and  do  the  leuis  fchake, 

That  ^um  tuig  may  wag,  and  make  hir  to  wake. 


462  JAMES  I.    OF   SCOTLAND  Lect.  X. 

With  that  anon  ry*  fche  toke  up  a  fang, 

Quhare  com  anon  mo  birdis  and  alight ; 
Bet  than  to  here  the  mirth  was  tham  amang, 

Ouer  that  to  fee  the  fuete  ficht 
Of  hyr  ymage,  my  fpirit  was  fo  light, 

Metho*  I  flawe  for  joye  w*out  areft, 

So  were  my  wittis  bound  in  all  to  feft. 
And  to  the  nottis  of  the  philomene, 

Quhilkis  fche  fang  the  ditee  there  I  maid 
Direft  to  hir  y*  was  my  hertis  quene, 

Withoutin  quhom  no  fongis  may  be  glade, 
And  to  that  fanft  walking  in  the  fchade. 

My  bedis  thus  with  humble  hert  entere, 

Deoutly  I  faid  on  this  manere. 
Quhen  fall  zour  merci  rew  upon  zour  man, 

Quhois  feruice  is  yet  uncouth  unto  zow, 
Sen  quhen  ze  go,  there  is  not  ellis  than, 

Bot  hert  quhere  as  the  body  may  not  thron 
Folow  thy  hevin,  quho  fuld  be  glad  bot  thou, 

That  fuch  a  gyde  to  folow  has  undertake, 

Were  it  throu  hell,  the  way  thou  no*  forfake. 
And,  efter  this,  the  birdis  everichone 

Tuke  up  ane  other  fang  full  loud  and  clere,~ 
And  w*  a  voce  faid,  Well  is  vs  begone. 

That  with  our  makis  are  togider  here ; 
We  proyne  and  play  w*out  dout  and  dangere, 

All  clothit  in  a  foyte  full  frefch  and  neAve, 

In  luffis  fervice  befy,  glad,  and  trewe. 
And  ze  frefch  May,  ay  merciful!  to  bridis. 

Now  welcum  be,  ze  floure  of  monethis  all, 
Ffor  not  onely  zour  grace  upon  us  bydis, 

Bot  all  the  warld  to  witnes  this  we  call. 
That  flrowit  hath  fo  plainly  over  all, 

W'  new  frefch  fuete  and  tender  grene, 

Our  lyf,  our  luft,  our  govemoure,  our  quene. 
This  was  their  fang,  as  femyt  me  full  heye, 

W'  full  mony  uncouth  fwete  note  and  fchill, 
And  therew*  all  that  faire  vpward  hir  eye 

Wold  call  amang,  as  it  was  Goddis  will, 
Quhare  I  might  fe,  {landing  alone  full  ftill, 

The  faire  faiture  y*  nature,  for  maiftrye, 

In  hir  vifage  wro*  had  full  lufingly. 


Lect.  X.  JAMES  I.    OF    SCOTLAND  463 

And,  quhen  fche  walkit,  had  a  lytill  thrawe 

Under  the  fuete  grene  bewis  bent, 
Hir  faire  frefch  face,  as  quhite  as  any  fnawe, 

Sche  turnyt  has,  and  fiirth  her  wayis  went ; 
Bot  tho  began  myn  axis  and  turment, 

To  fene  hir  part,  and  folowe  I  na  my*, 

Metho*  the  day  was  turnyt  into  ny*. 

The  dialect  of  this  poem  is  English  in  almost  everythiDg  but 
the  spelling.  Only  a  single  old  manuscript  of  the  King's  Quair 
exists,  and  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  reason  to  suppose  it 
to  be  the  original,  or  even  an  authentic  copy.  The  occasional 
halting  of  the  metre,  which  is  in  general  smooth,  is  strong 
evidence  of  some  corruption  of  the  text;  and  it  may  be 
considered  impossible  that  a  young  man,  educated  in  England 
from  the  age  of  three  or  even  of  eight  or  nine  years,  should 
have  employed  the  orthography  of  the  manuscript  in  ques- 
tion. It  is,  therefore,  either  a  transcript  made  by  a  scribe  not 
well  versed  in  the  English  dialect,  or  it  has  been  nationalized 
by  some  Caledonian,  who  'loved  Scotland  better  than  the 
truth.' 

King  James  acknowledged  Gowerand  Chaucer  as  his  masters, 
but  he  certainly  did  not  learn  from  them  this  spelling  of  the 
concluding  stanza  of  the  poem,  in  which  he  confesses  his 
obligations  to  them :  — 

Vnto  impnis  of  my  maisteris  dere, 

Gowere  and  Chaucere,  that  on  the  steppis  satt 

Of  rhethorike,  quhill  thai  were  lyvand  here, 
Superlatiue  as  poetis  laureate,  , 

In  moralitee  and  eloquence  ornate, 
I  recommend  my  buk  in  lynis  seven, 
And  eke  thair  saulis  vnto  the  blisse  of  hevin. 

Apart  from  the  internal  evidence  of  the  poem  itself,  we  have 
abundant  other  proof  that  its  dialect  is  not  that  of  the  Scottish 
nation  in  the  first  third  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Holinshed 
has  preserved  for  us  a  piece  of  testimony  on  this  subject, 
directly  connected  with  the  prince  himself,  in  a  letter  written 


464  LTDGATB  Lect.  X. 

by  King  Eobert  to  King  Henry  IV.,  in  anticipation  of  the 
possibility  of  the  young  prince's  capture  while  trying  to  '  force 
the  blockade,'  and  proceed  to  France.  The  diction  of  this 
epistle  is  in  the  same  pedantic  strain  which  characterised  the 
dialect  of  many  Scotch  writers  of  the  following  century.  Fully 
twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  words  are  French  or  Latin,  and 
among  them  are  such  expressions  as :  *  thair  empire  is  caduke 
and  fragill,'  *  quhan  princes  ar  roborat  be  amitee  of  other,  &c.,' 
*to  obtemper  to  thir  owr  desires,'  and  the  like.  In  short,  the 
whole  style  of  the  letter  is  as  remote  as  possible  from  the  sim- 
plicity and  naturalness  of  expression  that  marked  the  English 
of  that  period,  and  of  which  King  James's  poem  constitutes  so 
good  a  specimen. 

A  little  later,  or  about  the  year  1430,  flourished  Lydgate,  a 
poet  of  moderate  merit,  but  to  whom  the  popularity  of  his 
principal  subjects,  the  Fall  of  Princes,  taken  from  Boccaccio, 
the  Destruction  of  Troy,  and  the  Siege  of  Thebes  —  all  founded 
on  middle-age  adaptations  and  amplifications  of  classical  narra- 
tives —  gave  a  more  general  circulation  than  the  works  of  any 
other  writer  of  that  century  obtained. 

Lydgate's  poems  are  extremely  numerous,  and  mostly  still 
in  edited.  They  embrace  a  vast  variety  of  subjects,  including 
some  not  precisely  fit  to  be  treated  by  an  ecclesiastic.  The  un- 
published works,  so  far  as  can  be  judged  by  the  scanty  extracts 
in  Warton  and  other  critical  writers,  are  of  at  least  equal  merit 
with  those  which  have  been  printed.  It  is  much  to  be  wished 
that  a  selection  of  them  might  be  edited,  because,  from  their 
great  variety  of  topics,  metre  and  prevalent  tone,  they  would, 
no  doubt,  furnish  important  contributions  to  the  history  of 
English  philology.  Lydgate  was  one  of  the  few  Englishmen  of 
his  time  who  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  both  an  English  education 
and  a  Continental  literary  training.  He  not  only  visited  Italy, 
as  did  hundreds  of  the  priesthood,  for  professional  purposes,  but 
carefully  studied  and  mastered  the  languages  and  secular  litera- 
ture of  that  country  and  of  France;  and  he  is  said  to  have 
opened  a  school  at  his   monastery,  after   his  return,  for  the 


Lect.  X.  MINOR   POETRY   OP   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  465 

instruction  of  young  gentlemen  in  the  arts  of  poetry  and  rhetoric, 
and  in  all  that  is  called  belles-lettres  learning. 

The  Story  of  Thebes  was  written  as  a  sort  of  continuation  of 
the  Canterbury  Tales,  and  is  preceded  by  a  prologue,  in  which 
the  author  says  he  fell  accidentally  into  company  with  Chaucer's 
pilgrims,  and  was  invited  to  join  them,  and  contribute  a  tale  for 
the  entertainment  of  the  party.  The  dialect  of  this  composition 
is  evidently  an  imitation  of  the  style  and  diction  of  Chaucer ; 
and  hence  it  is  more  antiquated  than  that  of  Lydgate's  other 
works,  many  of  which  are  even  more  modern,  both  in  vocabulary 
and  in  idiom,  than  the  diction  of  Spenser,  who  lived  a  century 
and  a  half  later. 

The  Fall  of  Troy  is  a  compilation  from  a  great  variety  of 
sources,  strung  together  not  without  art,  and  embellished  with 
many  apparently  original  inventions  of  Lydgate's  own.  It  pos- 
sesses an  interest  of  an  archaeological  as  well  as  of  a  philological 
character,  for  it  brings  the  action  of  the  personages,  their  cos- 
tumes, their  architecture  and  their  habits  to  those  of  Lydgate's 
time,  and  consequently  adds  something  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
English  social  life  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  versification  of  Lydgate  is  generally  very  smooth,  but  it 
is  sometimes  difficult  to  resolve  it  into  prosodical  feet,  on  account 
of  the  irregularity  in  the  pronunciation  of  the  e  final,  which  was 
now  fluctuating,  sometimes  articulated  and  sometimes  silent. 
Upon  what  rule  the  pronunciation  rested,  or  whether  the  poet 
arbitrarily  articulated  or  suppressed  it,  as  the  convenience  of 
metre  dictated,  I  am  unable  to  say ;  but  it  is  evident  that  in  his 
time  there  was  a  rapidly  increasing  inclination  to  drop  it  in 
speech,  though  it  was  still  retained  in  the  orthography  of  a 
great  number  of  words  which  have  now  lost  it. 

The  minor  poetry  of  the  fifteenth  century  is  in  general  of 
little  interest  or  value,  though  there  are  some  devotional  pieces 
not  devoid  of  merit  in  versification,  if  wanting  in  originality  of 
thought.  I  give,  as  a  specimen,  a  poem  to  the  Virgin,  from 
Wright  and  Halliwell's  Eeliquise  Antiquse,  vol.  ii.  pp.  212,  213 : 

H  H 


466  MINOR   POEMS   OF   FIFTEENTH    CENTURY  Lect.  X. 

Mary  moder,  wel  thow  be  ! 

Mary  mayden,  thynk  on  me ; 

Maydyn  and  moder  was  never  non 

To  the,  lady,  but  thou  allon. 

Swete  Mary,  mayden  clene, 

Shilde  me  iro  all  shame  and  tene ; 

And  out  of  syn,  lady,  shilde  thou  me, 

And  out  of  det,  for  charite. 

Lady,  for  thi  joyes  fyve, 

Gyf  me  grace  in  this  life 

To  know  and  kepe  over  all  thyng 

Cristyn  feath  and  Goddis  biddyng. 

And  truly  wynne  all  that  is  nede 

To  me  and  myne,  bothe  cloth  and  fede. 

Helpe  me,  lady,  and  alle  myne, 

Shilde  me,  lady,  fro  hel  pyne. 

Shilde  me,  lady,  fro  vilany, 

And  fro  alle  wycked  cumpany. 

Shilde  me,  lady,  fro  evel  shame, 

And  from  all  wyckid  fame. 

Swete  Mary,  mayden  mylde, 

Fro  the  fende  thou  me  shilde, 

That  the  fende  me  not  dere ; 

Swete  lady,  thou  me  were 

Bothe  be  day  and  be  nyjt ; 

Helpe  me,  lady,  with  alle  thi  myjt, 

For  my  frendis,  lady,  I  pray  the, 

That  thei  may  saved  be 

To  ther  soulis  and  ther  life, 

Lady,  for  thi  joyes  fyve. 

For  myn  enimys  I  pray  also, 

That  thei  may  here  so  do, 

That  thei  nor  I  in  wrath  dye ; 

Swete  lady,  I  the  pray, 

And  thei  that  be  in  dedly  synne, 

Let  hem  never  dye  therin  ; 

But  swete  lady,  thou  hem  rede 

For  to  amende  ther  my  seede. 

Swete  lady,  for  me  thou  pray  to  hevyn  kyng. 

To  graunt  me  howsill,  Christe,  and  gode  endyng. 

Jhesu,  for  thi  holy  grace. 

In  heven  blisse  to  have  a  place; 


I 


Lkct.  X.  MINOR    rOEMS    OP   FIFTEENTH    CENTUIIY  467 

Lady  as  I  trust  in  the, 
These  prayers  that  thou  graunt  me ; 
And  I  shall,  lady,  her  belyve 
Grete  the  with  avys  fyve, 
A  pater  noster  and  a  crede, 
To  helpe  me,  lady,  at  my  nede. 
Swete  lady,  full  of  wynne, 
Full  of  grace  and  gode  within. 
As  thou  art  flour  of  alle  thi  kynne, 
Do  my  synnes  for  to  blynne. 
And  kepe  me  out  of  dedly  synne, 
That  I  be  never  takyn  therin. 

T  add,  from  the  same  collection,  a  short  poem  on  grammatical 
rules,  written  in  a  dialect  which  shows  that  the  author,  however 
good  a  Latinist  he  may  have  been,  had  very  vague  notions  of 
English  accidence  and  orthography  :  — 

My  lefe  chyld,  I  kownsel  ye 

To  furme  thi  vj .  tens,  thou  awyse  ye ; 

And  have  mynd  of  thi  clensoune, 

Both  of  nowne  and  of  pronoAvne, 

And  ilk  case  in  plurele. 

How  thai  sal  end,  awyse  the  wele ; 

And  thi  participyls  forgete  thou  nowth, 

And  thi  comparysons  be  yn  thi  thowth ; 

Thynk  of  the  revele  of  the  relatyfe. 

And  then  schalle  thou  the  bettyr  thryfe ; 

Lat  never  interest  downe  falle, 

Nor  penitet  with  hys  felows  alle ; 

And  how  this  Englis  schalle  cum  in, 

Wyt  tanto  and  quanto  in  a  Latyn, 

And  how  this  Englis  schalle  be  chawngede, 

Wyt  verbis  newtyrs  qwen  thai  are  hawede ; 

And  howe  a  verbe  schalle  be  furmede. 

Take  gode  hede  that  thou  be  not  stunnede ; 

The  ablatyfe  case  thou  hafe  in  mynd, 

That  he  be  saved  in  hys  kynd ; 

Take  gode  hede  qwat  he  wylle  do. 

And  how  a  nowne  substantyfe, 

Wylle  corde  with  a  verbe  and  a  relatyfe ; 

Fosculo,  poscOf  peto. 

H  H    2 


468  MINOR   POEMS   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  Lect.  X. 

And  yf  thou  wylle  be  a  grammarion, 
Owne  thi  fyngers  to  construccyon, 
The  infenytyfe  mode  alle  thorowth, 
Wyt  his  suppyns  es  mykylle  wroth ; 
And  thynk  of  propur  nownnys, 
Both  of  kastels  and  of  townnys ; 
And  when  oportet  cums  in  plas, 
Thou  knawys  miserere  has  no  gras. 

The  political  poetry  of  this  period,  as  a  contribution  to 
contemporaneous  history,  has  a  value  quite  independent  of  its 
merits,  or  rather  demerits,  in  a  literary  point  of  view.  The 
rhymed  chronicles  are  every  way  worthless ;  but  some  of  the 
controversial  and  polemic  political  verse  has  much  higher 
claims.  The  Libel  of  English  Policy,  a  poem  of  some  fifteen 
hundred  lines,  written  apparently  in  the  year  1436,  is  among 
the  most  important  productions  of  its  kind,  and  is  remarkable 
for  far-sighted  views  of  public  policy,  and  the  knowledge  it 
displays  of  the  material  resources  and  commercial  interests  of 
England.     The  prologue  deserves  quoting  at  length:  — 

THE   LIBEL    OF   ENGLISH    POLICY. 

Here  heginneth  the  prologe  of  the  processe  of  the  Lihelle  of  Englyshe 
Polycye^  exhortynge  alle  Englande  to  kepe  the  fiee  enviroun,  and 
namelye  the  narowe  see,  sheivynge  ivhate  profete  commeth  thereof 
and  also  worshype  and  salvacioun  to  Englande  and  to  alle  Englyshe 
menne. 

The  trewe  processe  of  Englysh  polycye, 
Of  utterwarde  to  kepe  thys  regne  in  rest 

Of  oure  England,  that  no  man  may  denye, 
Nere  say  of  soth  but  one  of  the  best 
Is  thys,  that  who  seith  southe,  northe,  est,  and  west, 

Cheryshe  merchandyse,  kepe  thamyralte. 

That  we  bee  maysteres  of  the  narowe  see. 

Ffor  Sigesmonde  the  grete  emperoure, 

Whyche  yet  regneth,  whan  he  was  in  this  londe 

Wyth  kynge  Herry  the  v*^,  prince  of  honoure. 
Here  moche  glorye  as  hym  thought  he  founde; 
A  myghty  londe,  whyche  hadde  take  on  honde 

To  werre  in  Ffraunce  and  make  mortalite. 

And  evere  welle  kept  rounde  aboute  the  see. 


I 


Lect.  X.  MmOR   POEMS   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  469 

And  to  tlie  kynge  thus  lie  seyde,  '  My  brothere,' 
Whan  he  perceyved  too  townes  Calys  and  Dovere, 

*  Of  alle  youre  townes  to  chese  of  one  and  othere, 

*  To  kepe  the  see  and  sone  to  come  overe 

'  To  werre  oughtwardes  and  youre  regno  to  recovere, 

*  Kepe  these  too  townes,  sire,  and  youre  mageste, 

*  As  youre  tweyne  eyne  to  kepe  the  narowe  see.' 

Ffor  if  this  see  be  kepte  in  tyme  of  werre, 

"Who  cane  here  passe  withought  daungere  and  woo  ? 

Who  may  eschape,  who  may  myschef  dyfFerre  2 
What  marchaundye  may  for  by  be  agoo  ? 
Ffor  nodes  hem  muste  take  truse  every  ffoo, 

Fflaundres,  and  Spayne,  and  othere,  trust  to  me, 

Or  ellis  hyndered  alle  for  thys  narowe  see. 

Therfore  I  caste  me  by  a  lytele  wrytinge 
To  shewe  att  eye  thys  conclusione, 

Ffor  concyens  and  for  myne  acquytynge 
Ayenst  God  and  ageyne  abusyon. 
And  cowardyse  and  to  oure  enmyes  confusione; 

Ffor  iiij.  thynges  our  noble  sheueth  to  me, 

Kyng,  shype  and,  swerde,  and  pouer  of  the  see. 

Where  bene  oure  shippes  ?  where  bene  oure  swerdes  become  ? 

Owre  enmyes  bid  for  the  shippe  sette  a  shepe. 
Alias  !  oure  reule  halteth,  hit  is  benome  ; 

.Who  dare  weel  say  that  lordeshyppe  shulde  take  kepe  ? 

I  wolle  asaye,  thoughe  myne  hert  gynne  to  wepe, 
To  do  thys  werke,  yf  we  wole  ever  the, 
Ffor  verry  shame,  to  kepe  aboute  the  see. 

Shalle  any  prynce,  what  so  be  hys  name, 
Wheche  hathe  nobles  moche  lyche  oures. 

Be  lorde  of  see,  and  Fflemmyngis  to  oure  blame 
Stoppe  us,  take  us,  and  so  make  fade  the  floures 
Of  Englysshe  state,  and  disteyne  oure  honnoures  ? 

Ffor  cowardyse,  alias !  hit  shulde  so  be ; 

Therfore  I  gynne  to  wryte  now  of  the  see. 

After  the  prologue,  follow  chapters  on  the  trade  between  the 
Continental  states,  which  is  conducted  by  way  of  the  British 
channel,  the  object  being  to  show  that  if  England  controls  that 


I 


470  MINOR   POEMS   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  Lect.  X. 

strait  by  her  maritime  towns  on  both  coasts,  and  her  fleets, 
she  is  virtually  the  mistress  of  the  commerce  of  Western 
Europe.  These  chapters  furnish  a  good  deal  of  information  on 
the  productive  industry,  the  imports  and  exports,  and  all  the 
financial  interests  of  the  countries  bounded  by  the  Atlantic  and 
the  Baltic  seas,  as  well  as  of  the  most  important  Mediterranean 
ports,  which  latter  seem  to  have  furnished  England  with  many 
of  the  lighter  and  more  costly  articles  of  trade  and  luxury, 
called  by  the  writer,  '  commodites  and  nycetees : '  — 

The  grete  galees  of  Venees  and  Filorence 

Be  wel  ladene  wyth  thynges  of  complacence, 

Alle  spicerye  and  of  grocers  ware, 

Wyth  swete  wynes,  alle  mariere  of  chaffare, 

Apes,  and  japes,  and  marmusettes  taylede, 

Nifles,  trifles,  that  litelle  have  availede, 

And  thynges  wyth  whiehe  they  fetely  blere  oure  eje, 

Wyth  thynges  not  enduryng  that  we  bye  ; 

Ffor  moche  of  thys  chaffare  that  is  wastable 

Mighte  be  forborne  for  dere  and  dyssevable. 

And  that  I  wene,  as  for  infirmitees. 

In  oure  Englonde  is  suche  comoditees, 

Wythowten  helpe  of  any  othere  londe, 

Whych  by  wytte  and  practike  bethe  ifounde, 

That  alle  humors  myght  be  voyded  sure  ; 

Whych  that  we  gledre  wyth  oure  Englysh  cure, 

That  wee  shulde  have  no  nede  to  skamonye, 

Turbit,  euforbe,  correcte,  diagredie, 

Rubarde,  sene,  and  yet  they  bene  to  nedefulle ; 

But  I  knowe  thynges  also  spedefulle. 

That  growene  here,  as  these  thynges  seyde ; 

Lett  of  this  matere  no  mane  be  dysmayde, 

But  that  a  man  may  voyde  infirmytee 

Wjthoute  degrees  fet  fro  beyonde  the  see. 

And  yett  there  shulde  excepte  be  ony  thynge, 

It  were  but  sugre,  truste  to  my  seyinge. 

He  that  trustith  not  to  my  seyinge  and  sentence, 

Lett  hym  better  serche  experience. 

In  this  mater  I  wole  not  ferthere  prese. 

Who  so  not  beleveth,  let  hym  leva  and  sease. 


Lect.   X.  MINOR   POEMS   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  471 

Thus  these  galeise  for  this  lykynge  ware, 

And  etynge  -ware,  here  hens  oure  beste  chaffare, 

Clothe,  wolle,  and  tynne,  whiche,  as  I  seyde  beforne, 

Oute  of  this  londe  werste  myghte  be  forborne. 

Ffor  eche  other  londe  of  necessite 

Have  grete  nede  to  by  some  of  the  thre  ; 

And  wee  ressey  ve  of  hem  into  this  cooste 

Ware  and  chaffare  that  lyghtlye  wol  be  loste. 

And  wolde  Jhesu  that  onre  lordis  wolde 

Considre  this  wel,  both  yonge  and  olde  ; 

Namelye  olde,  that  have  experience, 

That  myghte  the  yonge  exorten  to  prudence. 

What  harme,  what  hurt,  and  what  hinderaunce 

Is  done  to  us  unto  youre  grete  grevaunce, 

Of  suche  londes  and  of  suche  nacions  ? 

As  experte  men  knowe  by  probacions ; 

By  wretynge  as  discured  oure  counsayles, 

And  false  coloure  alwey  the  countertayles 

Of  oure  enmyes,  that  dothe  us  hinderinge 

Unto  our  goodes,  oure  realme,  and  to  the  kynge ; 

As  wysse  men  have  shewed  welle  at  eye. 

And  alle  this  is  colowred  by  marchaundrye. 

This  chapter  is  followed  by  *  an  ensampelle  of  deseytte,'  which 
furnishes  some  curious  information^  on  modes  and  rates  of 
exchange  and  usury  :  — 

Also  they  here  the  golde  owte  of  thys  londe. 
And  souketh  the  thryfte  awey  oute  of  oure  honde, 
As  the  waffore  soukethe  honeye  fro  the  bee, 
So  mynuceth  oure  commodite. 
Now  wolle  ye  here  how  they  in  Cotteswolde 
Were  wonte  to  borowe,  or  they  schulde  be  solde, 
Here  wolle  gode,  as  for  yere  and  yere. 
Of  clothe  and  tynne  they  did  in  lych  manere, 
And  in  her  galeys  schyppe  this  marchaundye  ? 
Than  sone  at  Venice  of  them  men  wol  it  bye, 
Then  utterne  there  the  chaffare  be  the  payse. 
And  lyghtly  als  ther  they  make  her  reys. 
And  whan  tho  gode  bene  at  Venice  solde, 
Than  to  carrye  her  chaunge  they  ben  fulle  bolde 


472  PROSE   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  Lect.  X. 

Into  Flaundres,  wlian  tliei  this  money  hare, 

They  \vyll  it  profre  ther  sotelt^  to  save. 

To  Englysshe  marchaundis  to  yeve  it  oute  by  eschaunge, 

To  be  paid  agayn,  thei  make  not  straunge, 

Here  in  Englonde,  semynge  for  the  better, 

At  the  resey  vinge  and  syght  of  the  lettir, 

By  iiij.  pens  lesse  in  the  noble  rounde, 

That  is  xij.  pens  in  the  golden  pounde. 

And  yf  Ave  wolle  have  of  paymente. 

A  fiiUe  monythe  than  moste  hym  nedes  assente, 

To  viij.  pens  losse,  that  is  shellyngis  tweyne, 

In  the  Englysshe  pound,  as  eftesones  ageyno 

Ffor  ij.  monthes  xij.  pens  must  be  paye, 

In  the  Englysshe  poiinde,  what  is  that  to  seye. 

But  iij.  shy  Hingis,  so  that  in  pounde  felle 

Ffor  hurte  and  harme  harde  is  wyth  hem  to  delle. 

And  whenne  Englysshe  marchaundys  have  contente 

This  eschaunge  in  Englonde  of  assente, 

That  these  seyde  Veneciance  have  in  wone, 

And  Florentynes,  to  bere  here  golde  sone 

Overe  the  see  into  Flaundres  ageyne. 

And  thus  they  lyve  in  Flaundres,  sothe  to  sayne, 

And  in  London,  wyth  suche  chevesaunce 

That  men  calle  usure,  to  oure  losse  and  hinderaunce. 

The  wide  range  of  vocabulary  required  for  the  lists  of  com- 
modities and  for  the  other  commercial  topics  discussed  in  this 
poem,  invests  it  with  a  good  deal  of  philological  interest,  but  it 
offers  nothing  new  in  point  of  syntax  or  inflection. 

The  prose  writers  of  the  first  three  quarters  of  the  fifteenth 
century  are  not  very  numerous,  nor,  with  an  exception  or  two, 
important.  There  are  several  chroniclers  of  this  period  who 
have  little  historical  merit,  and  it  may  be  remarked  as  a  rule 
almost  without  exception,  that  the  secular  prose  of  the  fifteenth 
century  is  greatly  inferior  to  the  poetry,  both  in  literary  skill 
and  in  philological  interest.  The  time  had  not  yet  come  for  the 
cultivation  of  the  diction  of  prose.  The  freedom  of  speech, 
which  had  grown  up  in  the  decrepitude  of  Edward  III.  and 
the    imbecility  of   his  successor,    the    weak  and   unfortunate 


Lect.  X,  BISHOP  pecock:  473 


Eichard  II.,  was  gone.  Liberty  of  thought  was  restrained  in  too 
many  ways,  tyrannized  over  by  too  many  despotisms,  to  be 
allowed  much  range  of  exercise.  The  realities  of  life,  political, 
social,  ecclesiastical,  could  not  safely  be  discussed,  and  it  was 
only  the  imaginative,  unsubstantial  world  of  poetry,  in  which 
the  English  mind  was  allowed  a  little  room  for  expansion. 

But,  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  quench  it,  the  spark  which 
Wycliffe  had  kindled  still  faintly  glowed  in  the  dreary  ash-heap  of 
the  Church  itself;  and  the  works  of  Pecock  afford  a  gratifying- 
proof  that  the  mantle  of  the  reformer  had  fallen  on  Avorthy 
shoulders,  though  he  who  bore  it  was  so  little  able  to  comprehend 
the  scope  and  logical  consequences  of  the  principles  on  which 
he  acted,  that  he  knew  not  even  in  what  direction  he  was 
marching. 

The  principal  work  of  Pecock  is  called  The  Eepressor  of 
over-much  Blaming  of  the  Clerg3\  It  was  written  about  the 
year  1450,  and  a  very  good  edition  of  it  has  just  been  published 
in  the  series  entitled  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of  Grreat  Britain 
and  Ireland  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is,  as  its  title  indicates,  a 
defence  of  many  of  the  doctrines  held  by  the  Church  of  Rome 
against  the  attacks  of  the  Lollardists,  or  followers  of  Wycliffe, 
and  other  reformers.  But  while  Pecock  assailed  the  heretical 
opinions  of  the  Lollardists,  and  sustained,  with  moderation,  the 
supremacy  of  the  Papal  See,  the  adoration  of  images  and  the 
like,  he  was  at  the  same  time  unconsciously  undermining  the 
position  on  which  he  stood,  by  admitting  that  general  councils 
were  not  infallible,  that  the  Scriptures  were  the  true  rule  of 
faith,  and  that  religious  dogmas  ought  to  be  supported  by 
argument,  and  not  by  the  bare  decree  of  an  unreasoning 
authority.  Clearer-sighted  men  than  himself  saw  whither 
Pecock  was  drifting,  and  that  his  well-meant  defence  of  the 
Church  was,  in  reality,  a  formidable  attack  upon  the  radical 
principles  of  its  organisation  and  the  groundwork  of  its  power. 
He  was,  therefore,  degraded  from  his  bishopric,  compelled  to 
recant,  and  confined  for  the  rest  of  his  life  in  a  conventual  prison. 


474  BISHOP   PECOCK  Lect.  X. 

The  appearance  of  a  work  like  the  Repressor  is  important  in  the 
ecclesiastical  annals  of  England,  because  so  many  of  the  writings 
of  the  early  reformers  were  destroyed  by  the  relentless  hostility  of 
the  authorities  of  the  Church,  that  our  materials  for  a  full  history 
of  those  anticipatory  movements  are  incomplete.  But  the  work  of 
Pecock  has  still  stronger  claims  to  the  attention  of  the  student 
of  English  literary  history,  both  from  its  philological  interest 
and  from  its  intrinsic  merits,  as  being,  if  not  the  first,  yet 
certainly  the  ablest  specimen  of  philosophical  argumentation 
which  had  yet  appeared  in  the  English  tongue.  The  style  of 
Pecock  bears  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  that  of  Hooker,  who 
lived  a  century  and  a  half  later ;  and  this  likeness  in  vocabulary 
and  structure  of  period  is  one  of  the  many  evidences  tending  to 
prove  that  theology  had,  from  the  time  of  Wycliffe  to  the 
seventeenth  century,  a  dialect  of  her  own,  which  was  in  a  great 
measure  distinct  from  and  independent  of  that  of  secular 
literature,  and  the  regularity  of  whose  progress  was  little 
affected  by  the  fluctuations  that  mark  the  history  of  the  English 
language  in  other  departments  of  prose  composition. 

Although,  in  diction  and  arrangement  of  sentences,  the 
Repressor  is  much  in  advance  of  the  chroniclers  of  Pecock's 
age,  the  grammar,  both  in  accidence  and  syntax,  is  in  many 
points  nearly  where  Wycliffe  had  left  it ;  and  it  is  of  course  in 
these  respects  considerably  behind  that  of  the  poetical  writers 
we  have  just  been  considering.  Thus,  while  these  latter 
authors,  as  well  as  some  of  earlier  date,  employ  the  objective 
plural  pronoun  them,  and  the  plural  possessive  pronoun  their, 
Pecock  writes  always  hem  for  the  personal  and  her  for  the 
possessive  pronoun.  Thus  in  chapter  xx.  vol.  ii.  p.  128,  'Forto 
conuicte  and  ouercome  the  said  erring  persoones  of  the  lay 
peple,  and  for  to  make  hem  leue  her  errouris,  an  excellent 
remedie  is  the  dryuyng  of  hem  into  sure  knowing,  or  into 
weenyng  or  opinioun,  that  thei  neden  mich  more  to  leerne  and 
knowe  into  the  profit  and  sure  leernyng  and  knowing  of  Groddis 
lawe  and  seruice,  than  what  thei  mowe  leerne  and  knowe  bi  her 


Lect.  X.  BISHOP   PECOCK  475 

reading  and  studiying  in  the  Bible  oonli,'  &c.  These  pro- 
nominal forms,  however,  soon  fell  into  disuse,  and  they  are 
hardly  to  be  met  with  in  any  English  writer  of  later  date  than 
Pecock.  With  respect  to  one  of  them,  however,  the  objective 
heim  for  thera,  it  may  be  remarked  that  it  has  not  become 
obsolete  in  colloquial  speech  to  the  present  day ;  for  in  such 
phrases  as  I  scnv  'em,  /  told  'em,  and  the  like,  the  pronoun  em 
(or  'e?7^)  is  not,  as  is  popularly  supposed,  a  vulgar  corruption  of 
the  full  pronoun  them,  ^vhich  alone  is  found  in  modern  books, 
but  it  is  the  true  Anglo-Saxon  and  old  English  objective  plural, 
which,  in  our  spoken  dialect,  has  remained  unchanged  for  a 
thousand  years. 

To  those  not  familiar  with  the  English  of  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth,  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
style  of  Pecock  has  a  quaint  and  antiquated  air,  from  the  free 
use  of  several  obsolete  forms,  and  especially  of  the  adjective 
termination  able,  which  he  constantly  adds  to  Saxon  roots,  as, 
for  example,  unlackable,  instead  of  the  French  indispensable, 
unagainsayahle,  for  indisputable.  But  such  words  were  very 
common  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Pecock  wrote,  though 
now  disused.  The  rejection  of  these  hybrid  words  from  the 
modern  vocabulary  is  curious,  as  an  instance  of  the  unconscious 
exercise  of  a  linguistic  instinct  by  the  English  people.  The 
objection  to  such  adjectives  is  their  mongrel  character,  the  root 
being  Saxon,  the  termination  Eomance ;  and  it  is  an  innate 
feeling  of  the  incongruity  of  such  alliances,  not  the  speculative 
theories  of  philologists,  which  has  driven  so  many  of  them  out 
of  circulation.  Besides  these  forms,  Pecock  uses  the  verbal 
plural  in  en,  and  some  other  archaic  inflections,  as  well  as  some 
now  obsolete  words.  The  union  of  these  old  inflections  with  a 
modern  structure  of  period  is  interesting,  because  it  shows 
that  the  fusion  of  French  and  Saxon  had  given  to  their  pro- 
duct— the  English  tongue — a  linguistic  character  which  was 
founded  more  on  logical  principle  than  on  grammatical  form, 
and  that  our  maternal  speech  has  been  for  four  hundred  years 


476  BISirOP   PECOCK  Lect.  X. 

substantially  the  same,  though  its   inflectional  characteristics 
have  been  considerably  changed. 

The  second  chapter  of  the  first  part  of  the  Repressor  is  here 
printed  entire,  as  a  sample  of  Pecock's  logic : — 

Forto  meete  a^ens  the  firste  bifore  spoken  opinioun,  and  forto 
vnroote  and  updrawe  it,  y  schal  sette  forth  first  xiij.  principal  conclu- 
siouns.  But  for  as  miche  as  this  vnrooting  of  the  first  opinioun  and 
the  proofis  of  tho  xiij.  conclusiouns  mo  wen  not  be  doon  and  made 
withoute  strengthe  of  argumentis,  therfore  that  y  be  the  better  and  the 
cleerer  vndirstonde  of  the  lay  peple  in  summe  wordis  to  be  aftir  spoken 
in  this  present  book,  y  sette  nowe  bifore  to  hem  this  doctrine  taken 
schortli  out  of  the  faculte  of  logik.  An  argument  if  he  be  ful  and 
foormal,  which  is  clepid  a  sillogisme,  is  mad  of  twey  proposiciouns 
dryuing  out  of  hem  and  bi  strengthe  of  hem  the  thridde  proposicioun. 
Of  the  whiche  thre  proposiciouns  the  ij.  first  ben  clepid  premissis,  and 
the  iij°.  folewing  out  of  hem  is  clepid  the  conclusioun  of  hem.  And  the 
firste  of  tho  ij.  premissis  is  clepid  the  first  premisse,  and  the  ij°.  of  hem 
is  clepid  the  ij®.  premisse.  And  ech  such  argument  is  of  this  kinde, 
that  if  the  bothe  premissis  ben  trewe,  the  conclusioun  concludid  out  and 
bi  hem  is  also  trewe  ;  and  but  if  euereither  of  tho  premissis  be  trewe, 
the  conclusioun  is  not  trewe.  Ensaumple  her  of  is  this.  '  Ech  man 
is  at  Eome,  the  Pope  is  a  man,  eke  the  Pope  is  at  Eome.'  Lo  here  ben 
sett  forth  ij.  proposicions,  which  ben  these,  'Ech  man  is  at  Rome;' 
and  '  The  Pope  is  a  man  ; '  and  these  ben  the  ij.  premyssis  in  this  argu- 
ment, and  thei  dryuen  out  the  iij®.  proposicioun,  which  is  this,  'The 
Pope  is  at  Rome,'  and  it  is  the  conclusioun  of  the  ij.  premissis.  Wher- 
fore  certis  if  eny  man  can  be  sikir  for  eny  tyme  that  these  ij.  premyssis 
be  trewe,  he  may  be  sikir  that  the  conclusioun  is  trewe  ;  thouj  alle  the 
aungelis  in  heuen  wolden  seie  and  holde  that  thilk  conclusioun  w^ere 
not  trewe.  And  this  is  a  general  reide,  in  euery  good  and  formal  and 
ful  argument,  that  if  his  premissis  be  knowe  for  treive,  the  conclusioun 
oujte  be  avowid  for  trewe,  what  euer  creature  wole  seie  the  contrarie. 

What  propirtees  and  condiciouns  ben  requirid  to  an  argument,  that 
he  be  ful  and  formal  and  good,  is  taujt  in  logik  bi  ful  faire  and  sure 
reulis,  and  may  not  be  taujt  of  me  here  in  this  present  book.  But 
wolde  God  it  were  leerned  of  al  the  comon  peple  in  her  modiris  Ian- 
gage,  for  thanne  thei  schulden  therbi  be  putt  fro  myche  ruydnes  and 
boistosenes  which  thei  han  now  in  resonyng ;  and  thanne  thei  schulden 
soone  knowe  and  perceue  whanne  a  skile  and  an  argument  bindith 
and  whanne  he  not  byndith,  that  is  to  seie,  whanne  he  concludith  and 


Li:cT.  X.  BISHOP   PECOCIC  477 

prouetli  his  concliTsioim  and  wlianne  lie  not  so  dooth  ;  and  tlianne  thei 
schulden  kepe  hem  silf  the  better  fro  falling  into  errouris,  and  thei 
my^ten  the  sooner  come  out  of  errouris  bi  heering  of  argiimentis  maad 
to  hem,  if  thei  into  enj  errouris  weren  falle;  and  thanne  thei  schulden 
not  be  so  blunt  and  so  ruyde  and  vnformal  and  boistose  in  resonyng, 
and  that  bothe  in  her  arguying  and  in  her  answering,  as  thei  now  ben ; 
and  thanne  schulden  thei  not  be  so  obstinat  a^ens  clerkis  and  ajens  her 
prelatis,  as  summe  of  hem  now  ben,  for  defaut  of  perceuyng  whanne  an 
argument  procedith  into  his  conclusioun  needis  and  whanne  he  not  so 
dooth  but  semeth  oonli  so  do.  And  miche  good  wolde  come  forth  if  a 
schort  compendiose  logik  were  deuysid  for  al  the  comoun  peple  in  her 
modiris  langage ;  and  certis  to  men  of  court,  leernyng  the  Kingis  lawe 
of  Ynglond  in  these  dales,  thilk  now  seid  schort  compendiose  logik 
were  ful  preciose.  Into  whos  making,  if  God  wole  graunte  leue  and 
leyser,  y  purpose  sumtyme  aftir  myn  othere  bisynessis  forto  assaie. 

But  as  for  now  thus  miche  in  this  wise  ther  of  here  talkid,  that  y  be 
the  better  vndirstonde  in  al  what  y  schal  argue  thoruj  this  present 
book,  y  wole  come  doun  into  the  xiij .  conclusiouns,  of  wliiche  the  firste 
is  this :  It  longith  not  to  Iloli  Scripture,  neither  it  is  his  office  into 
which  God  hath  him  ordeyned,  neither  it  is  his  part  forto  grounde  eny 
gouernaunce  or  deede  or  seruice  of  God,  or  eny  lawe  of  God,  or  eny 
trouthe  which  mannis  resoun  bi  nature  may  fynde,  leerne,  and  knowe. 

That  this  conclusioun  is  trewe,  y  proue  thus :  Whateuer  thing  is 
ordeyned  (and  namelich  bi  God)  for  to  be  ground  and  fmidament  of 
eny  vertu  or  of  eny  gouernaunce  or  deede  or  treuth,  thilk  same  thing 
muste  so  teche  and  declare  and  seie  out  and  jeue  forth  al  the  kunnyng 
vpon  the  same  vertu  or  gouernance  or  trouthe,  wher  with  and  wherbi 
thilk  same  vertu,  gouernaunce,  or  trouthe  is  sufficientli  knowen,  that 
withoute  thilk  same  thing  the  same  kunnyng  of  thilk  same  vertu,  gouer- 
naunce, or  trouthe  may  not  be  sufficientli  knowen,  so  that  thilk  same 
vertu,  gouernaunce,  or  trouthe,  in  al  the  kunnyng  withoute  which  he 
may  not  at  fuUe  be  leerned  and  knowen,  muste  nedis  growe  Ibrth  and 
come  forth  out  and  fro  oonli  thilk  thing  which  is  seid  and  holden  to  be 
ther  of  the  ground  and  the  fundament,  as  anoon  aftir  schal  be  proued : 
but  so  it  is,  that  of  no  vertu,  gouernaunce,  or  treuthe  of  Goddis  moral 
lawe  and  seruice,  into  whos  fynding,  leerning,  and  knowing  mannis  witt 
may  by  his  natural  strengthe  and  natural  helpis  come,  Holi  Scripture  al 
con  jeueth  the  sufficient  kunnyng ;  neither  fro  and  out  of  Holi  Scrip- 
ture al  oon,  whether  he  be  take  for  the  New  Testament  al  oon,  or  for 
the  Newe  Testament  and  the  Gold  to  gidere,  as  anoon  after  schal  be 
proued,  gro with  forth  and  cometh  forth  al  the  knowing  which  is  nedeful 


478  BISHOP  PECOCK  Lect.  X. 

to  be  had  upon  it :  wherfore  nedis  folewitli,  that  of  no  vertii  or  gouer- 
naunce  or  trouthe  into  which  the  doom  of  mannis  resoiin  may  sufficientli 
ascende  and  come  to,  for  to  it  fy nde,  leerne,  and  knowe  withoute  reue- 
laciomi  ii-o  God  mad  ther  vpon,  is  groundid  in  Holi  Scripture. 

The  firste  premisse  of  this  argument  muste  needis  be  grauntid.  For- 
whi,  if  the  sufficient  leernyng  and  kunnyng  of  eny  gouernaunce  or  eny 
trouthe  schulde  as  miche  or  more  come  fro  an  other  thing,  as  or  than 
fro  this  thing  which  is  seid  to  be  his  ground,  thanne  thilk  other  thing 
schulde  be  lijk  miche  or  more  and  rather  the  ground  of  thilk  gouern- 
aunce than  this  thing  schulde  so  be  ;  and  also  thilk  gouernaunce  or 
trouthe  schuld  haue  ij.  diuerse  groundis  and  schulde  be  bildid  vpon  ij. 
fundamentis,  of  which  the  oon  is  dyuers  atwyn  fro  the  other,  which 
forto  seie  and  holde  is  not  takeable  of  mannis  witt.  Wherfore  the  first 
premisse  of  the  argument  is  trewe.  Ensaumple  her  of  is  this :  But 
if  myn  hous  stode  so  in  this  place  of  erthe  that  he  not  stode  so  in 
an  othir  place  of  erthe  ellis,  this  place  of  the  erthe  were  not  the  ground 
of  myn  hous  ;  and  if  eny  othir  place  of  the  erthe  bare  myn  hous,  certis 
myn  hous  were  not  groundid  in  this  place  of  the  erthe :  and  in  lijk 
maner,  if  this  treuthe  or  gouernaunce,  that  ech  man  schulde  kepe 
mekenes,  were  knowe  bi  sum  other  thing  than  bi  Holi  Scripture,  and 
as  weel  and  as  sufficiently  as  bi  Holi  Scripture,  thilk  gouernaunce  or 
trouth  were  not  groundid  in  Holi  Scripture.  Forwhi  he  stood  not  oonli 
ther  on ;  and  therfore  the  first  premisse  is  trewe.  Also  thus  :  Ther  mai 
no  thing  be  fundament  and  ground  of  a  wal,  or  of  a  tree,  or  of  an  hous, 
saue  it  upon  Avhich  the  al  hool  substaunce  of  the  wal,  or  of' the  tree,  or 
of  the  hous  stondith,  and  out  of  which  oonly  the  wal,  tree,  or  hous 
cometh.  Wherfore  bi  lijk  skile,  no  thing  is  ground  and  fundament  of 
eny  treuthe  or  conclusioun,  gouernaunce  or  deede,  saue  it  ujDon  which 
aloon  al  the  gouernaunce,  trouthe,  or  vertu  stondith,  and  out  of  which 
aloon  al  the  siime  treuthe  or  gouernance  cometh. 

That  also  the  ij®.  premisse  is  trewe,  y  proue  thus  :  What  euer  deede 
or  thing  doom  of  resoun  dooth  as  fulli  and  as  perfitli  as  Holi  Scripture 
it  dooth,  Holi  Scripture  it  not  dooth  onli  or  al  oon ;  but  so  it  is,  that 
what  euer  leernyng  and  kunnyng  Holi  Scripture  j^eueth  upon  eny  of  the 
now  seid  gouernauncis,  trouthes,  and  vertues,  (that  is  to  seie,  upon  eny 
gouernaunce,  trouthe,  and  vertu  of  Goddis  ]a\ve  to  man,  in  to  whos 
fynding,  leernyng,  and  knowing  mannis  resoun  may  bi  him  silf  aloon, 
or  with  natural  helpis,  rise  and  come,)  mannis  resoun  may  and  can  jeue 
the  same  leerning  and  knowing,  as  experience  ther  upon  to  be  take 
anoon  wole  schewe ;  for  thou  canst  not  fynde  oon  such  gouernaunce 
tau^t  in  Holi  Scripture  to  be  doon,  but  that  resoun  techeth  it  lijk  weel 


Lect.  X.  PROSE    OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTUKY  479 

and  lijk  fuUi  to  be  doon ;  and  if  thou  wolt  not  trowe  this,  assigne  thou 
summe  suche  and  assaie,  Wherfore  folewith  that  of  noon  suche  now 
seid  gouernauncis  the  leernyng  and  knowing  is  had  and  taujht  hi  Holi 
Scripture  oonli  or  aloone ;  and  therfore  the  ij®.  premisse  of  the  firste 
principal  argument  must  needis  be  trewe. 

And  thanne  ferther,  thus :  Sithen  the  bothe  premissis  of  the  first 
principal  argument  ben  trewe,  and  the  argument  is  formal,  nedis  muste 
the  conclusioun  concludid  bi  hem  in  the  same  arguyng  be  trewe,  which 
is  the  bifore  set  first  principal  conclusioun. 

The  Paston  Letters  contain  many  very  curious  specimens  of 
epistolary  composition  belonging  to  this  and  the  preceding  cen- 
tury. They  are  principally  written  by  persons  of  rank  and 
condition,  but  often  betray  a  singular  ignorance  of  the  rules 
of  grammar  and  orthography. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  English  was  now  the  almost  universal 
spoken  language  of  all  classes  of  English  society ;  but  it  does 
not  even  yet  seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  fit  medium  of 
formal  communication  in  official  circles.  The  first  volume  of 
Eoyal  and  Historical  Letters  during  the  reign  of  Henry  IV. — 
the  only  volume  yet  published  —  embracing  official  correspond- 
ence from  1399  to  1400,  contains  upwards  of  sixty  letters, 
reports,  and  other  communications,  the  parties  to  which  were 
English  or  Scotch.  All  these,  with  the  exception  of  one  in 
Scotch,  and  one  and  part  of  another  in  English,  are  in  Latin  or 
in  French ;  laymen  generally  using  the  latter,  while  ecclesi- 
astics commonly  preferred  the  more  learned  language.  It  is, 
however,  a  singular  fact,  that  two  of  Henry's  ambassadors  to 
France,  Swynford  and  De  Eyssheton,  at  a  period  when  French 
was  so  commonly  used  in  public  documents  in  England,  pro- 
fessed themselves  as  ignorant  of  that  language  as  of  Hebrew. 
'  Vestras  litteras,'  say  they  in  a  letter  to  the  French  Commis- 
sioners, dated  October  21,  1404,  'scriptas  in  Gallico,  nobis 
indoctis  tanquam  in  idiomate  Hebraico  *  *  *  recepimus.' 
These  same  persons  write  to  Henry  IV.  in  Latin,  and  in  all 
probability  their  grammatical  knowledge  of  English  was  about 
on  a  par  with  their  attainments  in  French. 


480  PROSE   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  Lect.  X. 

The  solitary  English  letter  in  this  volume  is  as  follows : — 

LORD   GREY   DE    RUTHYN   TO    GRIFFITH   AP   DAVID   AP   GRIFFITH. 

GrufFuth  ap  David  ap  Gruffuth. 

We  send  the  greting  welle,  but  no  thyng  with  goode  hert. 

And  we  have  welle  understande  thy  lettre  to  us  sent  by  Deykus 
Vaghan,  our  tenaunt,  which  maken  mention  and  seist  that  the  fills  John 
Weele  hath  disseyved  the.  And  seist  that  alle  men  knowne  welle  that 
thu  was  under  the  protectioim  of  Mered  ap  Owyn,  and  sent  to  the  as 
thu  seist  by  trete  of  thy  cousynes,  Maester  Edward,  and  Edwarde  ap 
David,  and  asked  the  if  thu  Avoldest  come  inne,  and  he  wolde  gette  the 
thy  chartere  of  the  Kyng,  and  that  thu  sholdest  be  Keyshate  in  Chirk- 
lond ;  and  other  thyngis  he  beheght  the,  which  he  fullfylled  noght,  as 
thu  seiste;  and  after  warde  asked  the  whether  thu  woldest  go  over  the 
see  with  him,  and  he  wolde  gette  the  thy  chartere  of  the  King,  and 
bryng  the  to  hym  sounde  and  saufe,  and  thu  sholdest  have  wages  as 
moche  as  any  gentelle  man  that  went  with  hym.  And  overe  thus  thu 
seideist  that  John  Welle  seide  befor  the  Bishope  of  Seint  Assaph,  and 
befor  thy  cousynes,  that,  rather  than  thu  sholdest  faile,  he  Avolde  spenne 
of  his  oun  goode  xx  marcis. 

Heer  up  on  thu  trusted,  as  thu  seiste,  and  duddest  gete  the  tAvo  men, 
and  boght  the  armoure  for  alle  peces,  horsen,  and  other  araie,  and 
comest  to  Oswaldestree  a  nyght  befor  that  thei  Avent ;  and  on  the  mo- 
rowe  after  thu  sendest  Piers  Cambr,  the  recey vour  of  Chirklonde,  thries 
to  hym,  to  telle  hym  that  thu  was  redy,  and  he  seide  that  thu  sholdest 
speke  no  worde  with  him.  And  at  the  last  he  saide  he  hadde  no  wages 
for  the,  as  thu  seiste,  and  he  hadde  fully  his  retenue,  and  bade  the  goo 
to  Sir  Richarde  Laken  to  loke  whether  he  hadde  nede  of  the  other  noo, 
with  the  which  thu,  as  thu  seiste,  haddest  nevere  ado,  ne  nevere  madest 
covenaunt  with.  For  thu  woldest,  as  thu  seiste,  have  goon  for  no  wages 
with  hym  over  see,  but  for  to  have  thy  chartere  of  the  Kyng,  and  sume 
lyvyng  that  thu  myghtest  dwelle  in  pees. 

And,  as  thu  seist,  Sir  Richard  Laken  and  Straunge  wolle  ben-e 
wittenesse  that  thu  was  redy  and  wylly  for  to  goon  with  hym  giiFe  he 
hadde  be  trewe.  And  also  thu  seiste  he  cam  to  Laken  and  to  Straunge 
and  wolde  have  made  hem  to  take  the,  and  thu  haddest  wittyng  ther  of, 
as  thu  seiste,  and  trussed  the  fro  thennes,  and  knowelechest  that  -thy 
men  cam  and  breeke  our  parke  by  nyght,  and  tooke  out  of  hyt  two  of 
our  horses,  and  of  our  menis. 

And,  as  hit  is  tolde  the,  thu  seiste,  that  we  ben  in  pourpose  to  make 
our  men  brenne  and  slee  in  what  so  ever  cuntree  tliu  be  inne,  and  wilt 


Lect.  X.  PROSE   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  481 

withouten  doute,  as  tliu  seiste,  as  many  men  as  we  slee  and  as  many 
housen  that  we  brenne  for  thy  sake,  as  many  brenne  and  slee  for  our 
sake.  And,  as  thu  seiste,  thu  wilt  have  botlie  breede  and  ale  of  the 
best  that  is  in  our  lordshipe  ;  and  heer  of  thu  biddest  us  have  no  doute, 
the  whiche  is  agayn  our  wylle,  gife  any  thu  have  breede  other  ale  so, 
and  ther  as  thu  berrest  up  on  us  that  we  sholde  ben  in  pourpose  to 
brenne  and  sleen  men  and  housen  for  thy  sake,  or  for  any  of  thyn  en- 
clinant  to  the,  or  any  of  hem  that  ben  the  Kinges  trewe  liege  men,  we 
was  nevere  so  mys  avised  to  worch  agayn  the  Kyng  no  his  lawes, 
whiche  gifFe  we  dudde,  were  heigh  tresoun ;  but  thu  hast  hadde  fals 
messageres  and  fals  reportoures  of  us  touchy ng  this  matere ;  and  that 
shalle  be  welle  knowen  un  to  the  King  and  alle  his  Counsaile. 

Ferthermore,  ther  as  thu  knoAvlechest  by  thyn  oun  lettre  that  thy 
men  hath  stoUe  our  horsen  out  of  our  parke,  and  thu  recettour  of  hem, 
we  hoope  that  thu  and  thy  men  shalle  have  that  ye  have  deserved. 
For  us  thynketh,  thegh  John  Welle  hath  doon  as  thu  aboven  has  certe- 
fied,  us  thynketh  that  that  sholde  noght  be  wroken  towarde  us.  But 
we  hoope  we  shalle  do  the  a  pryve  thyng ;  a  roope,  a  ladder,  and  a 
ring,  heigh  on  gallowes  for  to  henge.  And  thus  shalle  be  your  endyng. 
And  he  that  made  the  be  ther  to  helpyng,  and  we  on  our  behalfe  shalle 
be  welle  Avillyng.     For  thy  lettre  is  knowlechyng. 

Written,  etc. 


XI 


LECTUEE  XL 

THE  ENGLISH   LANGUAGE  AND   LITEKATURE   FROM  CAXTON 
TO   TIDU  ACCESSION   OF   ELIZABETH. 

The  importance  of  the  invention  of  printing,  startling  and 
mysterious  as  it  seemed,  was  very  imperfectly  appreciated  by 
contemporary  Europe.  It  was  at  first  regarded  only  as  an 
economical  improvement,  and  in  England  it  was  slow  in  pro- 
ducing effects  which  were  much  more  speedily  realized  on  the 
Continent.  In  England,  for  a  whole  generation,  its  influence 
was  scarcely  perceptible  in  the  increase  of  literary  productivity, 
and  it  gave  no  sudden  impulse  to  the  study  of  the  ancient 
tongues,  though  the  printing-offices  of  Germany  and  Italy,  and, 
less  abundantly,  of  France,  were  teeming  with  editions  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics,  as  well  as  of  the  works  of  Gothic  and 
Eomance  writers,  new  and  old. 

The  press  of  Caxton,  the  first  English  printer,  was  in  activity 
from  1474  to  1490.  In  these  sixteen  years,  it  gave  to  the  world 
sixty-three*  editions,  among  which  there  is  not  the  text  of  a 

*  The  whole  number  of  productions  issued  by  Caxton  is  stated,  in  the  Appendix 
to  the  late  reprint  of  The  Game  of  the  Chesse,  by  Mr.  Vincent  Figgins,  at  sixty- 
seven,  three  of  which  were  printed  before  Caxton's  return  to  England.  Several 
of  these  were  but  pamphlets,  or  perhaps  single  sheets.  They  may  be  classed  as 
follows :  In  French,  two ;  in  Latin,  seven ;  two  or  three  with  Latin  titles,  but 
language  of  text  not  indicated  in  the  list ;  the  remainder  in  English.  The  only 
original  works  of  native  English  authors  are  :  The  Chronicles  of  Euglond,  The 
Descripcioun  of  Britayne,  The  Polycronycon,  Gower's  Confessio  Amantis, 
Chaucer's  Tayles  of  Cantyrburye,  Chaucer's  and  Lydgate's  Minor  Poems,  Chau- 
cer's Book  of  Fame,  Troylus  and  Creseide,  Lydgate's  Court  of  Sapience,  Lydgate's 
Lyf  of  our  Ladye,  and  possibly  one  or  two  others.  These,  with  the  exception  of 
the  poems  of  Lydgate,  and  of  Caxton's  own  additions  to  the  works  he  published, 
aU  belong  to  the  preceding  century. 


Lect.  XL  caxton's  peess  483 

single  work  of  classic  antiquity,  though  there  are  a  few  transla- 
tions of  Grreek  and  Latin  authors,  chiefly  taken,  however,  at 
second  hand  from  the  French.  Caxton  printed  a  few  ecclesias- 
tical manuals,  and  a  volume  of  parliamentary  statutes,  in  Latin, 
and  one  or  two  works  in  French  ;  but  it  does  not  satisfactorily 
appear  that  his  press  issued  a  single  original  work  by  a  contem- 
porary linglish  author,  if  we  except  his  own  continuations  of 
older  works  published  by  him.  He  rendered  good  service  to 
his  own  generation,  indeed,  by  printing  editions  of  Chaucer, 
Gower  and  Lydgate,  and  thus  disseminating  the  works  of  those 
authors  through  England ;  but  it  is  very  doubtful  whether,  in 
the  end,  the  publication  of  those  editions  was  not  an  injury, 
rather  than  a  benefit,  to  the  cause  of  later  English  literature. 

It  was  Caxton's  general  practice,  as  appears  from  his  own  re- 
peated avowals,  to  reduce  the  orthography  and  grammar,  and 
sometimes  even  the  vocabulary,  of  the  authors  he  printed,  to 
the  usage  of  his  own  time,  or  rather  to  an  arbitrary  and  not 
very  uniform  standard  set  up  by  himself.  He  had  spent  a  large 
part  of  his  life  in  Flanders  and  in  France,  where  he  established 
presses,  and  where  he  printed  both  in  French  and  in  Latin 
before  undertaking  any  English  work.  His  own  style  is  full  of 
Gallicisms  in  vocabulary  and  phrase,  and  there  is  very  little 
doubt  that  his  changes  of  his  copy  were  much  oftener  corrup- 
tions than  improvements.*  In  the  preface  to  his  second  edition 
of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  he  professes  to  have  conformed  to  an 
approved  manuscript;  but  this  declaration  evidently  only  nega- 
tives the  addition  or  omission  of  verses,  or,  as  he  expresses  it : 


*  The  number  of  French  words  in  Caxton's  translations  is  large.  In  the 
second  edition  of  the  Game  of  the  Chesse  —  believed  to  be  the  first  book  he 
printed  in  England  —  they  are  nearly  three  times  as  numerous,  proportionately, 
as  in  the  Morte  d'  Arthur  pi'inted  by  him,  but  translated  by  Malorye ;  and  yet 
Malorye  —  whose  general  diction  is  perhaps  more  purely  Anglo-Saxon  than  tliat 
of  any  English  writer,  except  the  Wycliffite  translators,  for  at  least  a  century 
before  his  age  —  adopted  from  his  original  many  words  which  appear  for  the  first 
time  in  English  in  his  pages. 


484  caxton's  press  Lect.  xi. 

'setting  in  somme  thynges  that  he  [Chaucer]  never  sayd  ne 
made,  and  leving  out  many  thynges  that  he  made,  whyche  ben 
requysite  to  be  sette  in  it ; '  and  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  in  what  he  held  to  be  minor  matters,  he  practised  in  this 
case  something  of  the  same  license  as  with  other  authors.* 

The  printing  of  a  manuscript  generally  involves  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  original ;  and  there  is  little  probability  that  any  of 
those  employed  by  Caxton  escaped  the  usual  fate  of  authors' 
copies.  Besides  this,  the  printing  of  a  work  greatly  diminishes 
the  current  value  of  existing  manuscripts  of  the  same  text,  just 
as  a  new  edition  of  a  modern  book  often  makes  earlier  impres- 
sions worthless.  In  Caxton's  age,  English  scholars  possessed  no 
such  critical  acquaintance  with  their  mother  tongue,  as  to  have 
the  slightest  notion  of  the  great  importance  of  scrupulously 
preserving  the  original  texts  of  earlier  writers;  a.nd  hence 
Caxton's  editions  undoubtedly  caused,  not  only  the  sacrifice  of 
the  manuscripts  on  which  they  were  founded,  but  the  neglect 
and  destruction  of  many  others,  which  might  otherwise  have 

^  The  whole  passage  is  as  follo-ws :  '  Whiche  book  I  have  dylygently  orersen, 
and  duly  examyned  to  the  ende  that  it  be  made  aecordyng  unto  his  owen  makyng ; 
for  I  fynde  many  of  the  sayd  bookes,  whiche  wryters  have  abrydgyd  it,  and 
many  thynges  left  out,  and  in  some  places  have  sette  certayn  versys  that  he  never 
made  ne  sette  in  hys  booke ;  of  whyche  bookes  so  incorrecte  was  one  broughte  to 
me  vi.  yere  passyd,  whiche  I  supposed  had  ben  veray  true  and  correcte,  and 
aecordyng  to  the  same  I  dyde  do  enprynte  a  certayn  nomber  of  them,  whyche 
anon  were  solde  to  many  and  dy verse  gentyl  men,  of  whom  one  gentylman  cam 
to  me,  and  sayd  that  this  book  was  not  according  in  many  places  unto  the  book 
that  GefFerey  Chaucer  had  made.  To  whom  I  answered,  that  I  had  made  it 
aecordyng  to  my  copye,  and  by  me  was  nothing  added  ne  mynushyd.  Thenne  he 
sayd,  he  knewe  a  book  whyche  hys  fader  had  and  moche  lovyd,  that  was  very 
trewe,  and  aecordyng  unto  hys  owen  first  book  by  hym  made ;  and  sayd  more,  yf  I 
wold  enprynte  it  agayn,  he  wold  gete  me  the  same  book  for  a  copye.  How  be  it 
he  wyst  well  that  hys  fader  wold  not  gladly  departe  fro  it.  To  whom  I  said,  in 
caas  that  he  coude  gete  me  suche  a  book,  trewe  and  correcte,  yet  I  wold  ones 
endevoyre  me  to  enprynte  it  agayn,  for  to  satisfy  the  auctour,  where  as  tofore  by 
ygnoraunce  I  erryd  in  hurtyng  and  dyffamyng  his  book  in  dyverce  places,  in 
setting  in  somme  thynges  that  he  never  sayd  ne  made,  and  leving  out  many 
thynges  that  he  made  whyche  ben  requysite  to  be  sette  in  it.  And  thus  we  fyll 
at  accord,  and  he  full  gentylly  gate  of  hys  fader  the  said  book,  and  delyvered  it  to 
me,  by  whiche  I  have  corrected  my  book,  as  heere  after  alle  alonge  by  the  ayde 
of  almighty  God  shal  folowe,  whom  I  humbly  beseche  &c.' 


Lect.  XL  ENGLISH   OF   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY  485 

been  saved  to  a  period  when  their  worth  would  have  been  better 
appreciated.  This  serves  to  explain  how  it  is  that  we  have 
older,  better,  and  more  numerous  manuscripts  of  the  Wycliffite 
versions  of  the  Bible  than  of  Chaucer ;  and,  in  a  purely  literary 
point  of  view,  it  is  a  cause  of  congratulation,  rather  than  of 
regret,  that  Caxton  never  undertook  the  publishing  of  those 
translations.  Had  he  done  this,  we  should,  in  all  probability, 
now  possess  only  a  corrupt  printed  text,  and  a  few  manuscripts 
of  doubtful  value ;  whereas  the  want  of  an  early  printed  edition 
has  insured  the  careful  preservation  of  the  codices,  and  the 
scholarship  of  this  century  has  given  us  two  complete  and 
admirably  edited  ancient  texts,  with  various  readings  from  a 
great  number  of  old  and  authentic  copies. 

The  works  of  Pecock,  as  I  have  observed,  show  that  in  his 
hands  the  English  theological  prose  dialect,  though  still  sub- 
stantially the  same  in  grammatical  form,  had  made  a  consider- 
able advance  upon  Wycliffe  in  vocabulary,  and  more  especially 
in  the  logical  structure  of  period ;  and  the  poems  of  King 
James  I.  and  of  Lydgate  exhibit,  though  in  a  less  degree,  in- 
creased affluence  and  polish  of  diction  as  compared  with  Chaucer. 
But  in  the  secular  prose  of  the  fifteenth  century  we  find  few 
evidences  of  real  progress ;  and  in  the  productions  of  Caxton's 
press,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  generally  bear  his  own  ear-mark, 
little  improvement  is  visible.  For  the  every-day  purposes  of 
material  life,  and  for  the  treatment  of  such  poetic  themes  and 
the  creation  of  such  poetical  forms  as  satisfied  the  taste  of  the 
English  people,  the  language  of  England  was  very  nearly  suffi- 
cient, as  Chaucer  and  his  contemporaries  had  left  it,  and  there 
was  naturally  little  occasion  for  efforts  at  improvement  in  speech 
until  new  conditions  of  society  and  of  moral  and  intellectual 
culture  should  create  a  necessity  for  it. 

These  new  conditions,  which  were  common  to  Grreat  Britain 
and  to  the  Continent,  produced  a  visible  effect  upon  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  latter  long  before  they  showed  themselves  as 
influential  agencies  in  the  literature  of  England.     The  insular 


486  ENGLISH   OF   CAXTON's   TIME  1-ect.  XI. 

position  of  that  country  prevented  the  rapid  spread  of  the  new 
opinions  and  the  new  discoveries  which  originated  in  Grerman 
and  Romance  Europe;  and  they  were  the  slower  in  disseminat- 
ing themselves  among  the  English  people,  because  France,  the 
country  with  which  England  had  the  freest  and  most  frequent 
communication,  was  behind  Italy  and  Germany  in  availing 
itself  of  them. 

The  commercial  and  political  relations  between  England  on 
the  one  hand,  and  Germany  and  the  Italian  states  on  the  other, 
were  of  no  such  closeness  or  importance  as  to  create  a  reciprocal 
influence  between  them.  The  vernacular  tongues  of  these 
latter  were  stranger  to  the  Englishman  than  the  speech  of 
France,  which  was  still,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the  language 
of  English  jurisprudence;  and  classical  literature  had  not  yet 
become  so  well  known  to  English  laymen  as  to  make  the  Latin 
works  of  German  and  Italian  literati  readily  intelligible  to 
them.  At  the  same  time,  a  growing  national  hostility  to  France 
had  gradually  diminished  the  influence  of  French  literature; 
and  thus,  from  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  till  near  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth,  the  English  mind  was  left  to  its  own 
unaided  action,  its  own  inherent  resources,  while  all  the  other 
European  states  were  territorially  and  politically  so  connected 
that  they  were  constantly  acting  and  reacting  upon  each  other 
as  enlivening  and  stimulating  forces. 

The  civil  wars  of  England  had  also  an  unfavourable  eff'ect 
upon  English  literature;  for  —  though  the  moral  excitement  of 
periods  of  strife  and  revolution  often  begets  a  mental  activity 
which,  after  the  tumult  of  ^^ar  is  over,  manifests  itself  in 
splendid  intellectual  achievement  —  it  is  as  true  of  letters  as  of 
laws,  that,  for  the  time  being,  the  clash  of  arms  hushes  their 
voice  to  silence. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  better  method  of  enabling  the  reader 
to  form  an  idea  of  the  condition  in  which  Caxton  found  the 
English  of  his  time,  and  the  state  to  which  he  contributed  to 
bring  it,  than  by  introducing  extracts  from  the  Morte  d' Arthur 


J 


Lect.  XI.  THE  MORTE  d'arthur  487 

and  from  Caxton  himself.  The  Morte  d' Arthur  is  not,  indeed, 
a  work  of  English  invention,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  just 
to  style  it  simply  a  translation.  No  continuous  French  original 
for  it  is  known ;  but  it  is  a  compilation  from  various  French 
romances,  harmonized  and  connected  so  far  as  Malorye  was 
able  to  make  a  consistent  whole  out  of  them,  by  supplying  here 
and  there  links  of  his  own  forging. 

In  the  introduction  to  the  reprint  of  1817,  Southey  says  ; 
'  The  Morte  d' Arthur  is  a  compilation  from  some  of  the  most 
esteemed  romances  of  the  Eound  Table.  Had  the  volumes 
from  which  it  is  compiled  existed  in  English,  Sir  Thomas 
Malory  would  not  have  thought  of  extracting  parts  from  them, 
and  blending  them  into  one  work.  This  was  done  at  the  best 
possible  time :  a  generation  earlier,  the  language  would  have 
retained  too  much  of  its  Teutonic  form  ;  a  generation  later,  and 
the  task  of  translation  would  have  devolved  into  the  hands  of 
men  who  performed  it  as  a  trade,  and  equally  debased  the 
work  which  they  interpreted  and  the  language  in  which  they 
wrote.'     This  is  very  superficial  criticism. 

'  A  generation  earlier '  would  have  carried  us  back  to  the  time 
of  Pecock ;  '  a  generation  later '  would  have  brought  us  down  to 
that  of  Lord  Berners,  the  translator  of  Froissart.  If  Pecock 
be  taken  as  the  standard  of  his  age,  I  admit  the  language 
must  be  regarded  as  still  retaining  much  more  of  its  Teutonic 
fonwi  than  it  showed  in  the  hands  of  Sir  Thomas  Malorye.  But 
while  Pecock  was  grammatically  behind  his  age,  he  was  i-hetori- 
cally  far  in  advance  of  it ;  and  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that 
he  could  not  have  given  us  a  better,  translation  of  the  patch- 
work put  together  by  Malorye  than  Malorye  has  done.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  cannot  admit  that  Lord  Berners  '  debased '  either 
^  the  work  he  interpreted '  or  *  the  language  in  which  he  wrote,' 
in  his  sometimes  slovenly,  but  always  marvellously  spirited, 
translation  of  the  great  chronicler  Froissart.* 

*  I  apply  the  epithet  '  great '  to  Froissart  advisedly.     I  know  that  critical  in- 
vestigators— tithers  of  mint  and  cumin — have  detected  errors  of  time  and  place 


488  THE   MORTE   d'ARTHUR  Lect.  XL 

The  narrative  of  the  death  of  Arthur,  which  I  take  from  the 
fifth  chapter  of  the  twenty-first  book  of  the  Morte  d' Arthur, 
according  to  Southej^'s  reprint  of  Caxton's  edition  of  1485,  is  a 
favourable  specimen  of  JMalorye's  style.  The  proportion  of 
French  words,  which  does  not  exceed  four  per  cent.,  is  smaller 
than  Malory e's  general  average ;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
any  author  of  later  date  than  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  whose  vocabulary  is  so  '  Teutonic '  as  his  :  — 

Therfore  sayd  Arthur  vnto  syr  Bedwere,  take  thou  Excalybur  my 
good  swerde  and  goo  with  it  to  yonder  Avater  syde,  and  whan  thou 
comest  there  I  charge  the  tlirowe  my  swerde  in  that  water  &  come 
ageyn  and  telle  me  what  thou  there  seest.  My  lord  said  Bedwere  your 
conimaundement  shal  be  doon  &  lyghtly  brynge  you  worde  ageyn.  So 
syr  Bedwere  departed,  &  by  the  waye  he  behelde  that  noble  swerde 

in  his  chronology  and  his  geography ;  and  no  doubt  he  has  sometimes  ascribed,  to 
an  insignificant  and  forgotten  John,  quaint  words  and  hard  knocks  which  were 
really  spoken  and  given  by  an  equally  insignificant  and  forgotten  Peter.  But  his 
canvas  shows  no  false  colouring,  no  want  of  keeping,  no  confusion  of  costume; 
and  the  incidents  he  narrates,  if  not  always  true  of  the  persons  whom  he  introduces 
as  parties  to  them,  were,  in  general,  true  of  somebody,  or  —  which  comes  to  the 
same  thing  —  might  have  been  so,  without  any  violation  of  the  proprieties  of 
nature. 

Turner  did  not  hesitate  to  introduce  into  his  landscapes  a  tree  —  if  necessary 
for  his  lights,  and  shades,  and  distances  —  where  nature  had  blunderingly  left  it 
out,  or  some  ruthless  woodman  cut  it  down.  But  there  is  this  diiFerence  between 
the  two  artists :  the  painter  deliberately  invented  the  missing  object,  and  painted  it 
in  ;  the  chronicler  simply  admitted  that  which  was  narrated  to  him,  if  his  instincts 
told  him  it  was  probable  and  apposite,  without  very  scrupulously  inquiring  into 
its  exact  historical  truth. 

Without  Froissart,  we  might  construct  a  skeleton  history  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury—  a  plot  of  the  dramti  which  should  be  more  exact  in  the  mechanical 
shifting  of  the  scenes  than  his  narrative  —  but  the  dramatis  personse  would  be 
wired  skeletons  also,  with  no  pmse  in  their  arteries,  no  *  speculation  in  the  eyes 
they  glare  with.' 

A  modern  historian,  writing  the  annals  of  Froissart' s  time,  would  certainly 
omit  the  story  of  the  '  Lorde  of  Corasse's '  familiar  spirit  Orton,  and,  in  speaking 
of  the  island  of  Cephalonia,  would  fail  to  inform  us  that  *  the  fiiyry  and  the 
nympes  be  moche  conuersaunt  there ; '  but  Froissart's  mixture  of  the  truth  and  the 
fable  which  intermixed  themselves  in  the  life  of  his  time,  makes  us  more  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  the  man  and  woman  of  the  fourteenth  century  than  we 
could  become  by  the  study  of  true  annals  in  one  volume,  and  of  a  learned  essay  on 
popular  superstitions  in  another. 


Lect.  XI.  THE   MORTE    d'aRTIIUR  489 

that  the  pomel  &  the  hafte  was  al  of  precyous  stones,  &  thenne  he 
sayd  to  hym  self  yf  I  throwe  this  ryche  swerde  in  the  water  therof  shal 
neuer  come  good  but  harme  &  losse.  And  thenne  syr  bedwere  hydde 
excalybur  vnder  a  tree.  And  so  as  sone  as  he  myght  he  came  ageyn 
vnto  the  kyng  and  sayd  he  had  ben  at  the  water  and  had  throwen  the 
swerde  in  to  the  water.  What  sawe  thou  there  sayd  the  kyng,  syr  he 
sayd  I  sawe  no  thynge  but  wawes  and  wyndes.  That  is  vntrewly  sayd 
of  the  sayd  the  kynge.  Therfore  goo  thou  lyghtelye  ageyn  and  do  my 
commaundemente  as  thou  arte  to  me  leef  &  dere  spare  not  but  throwe  it 
in.  Than  syr  bedwere  retomed  ageyn  &  took  the  swerde  in  hys  hande, 
and  than  hym  thought  synne  and  shame  to  throwe  awaye  that  nobyl 
swerde,  and  so  efte  he  hydde  the  swerde  and  retorned  ageyn  and  tolde 
to  the  kyng  that  he  had  ben  at  the  water  and  done  his  commaunde- 
mente. What  sawe  thou  there  sayd  the  kyng.  Syr  he  sayd  I  sawe  no 
thynge  but  the  waters  wappe  and  wawes  wanne.  A  traytour  vntrewe 
sayd  kyng  Arthur  now  hast  thou  betrayed  me  twyse.  Who  wold  haue 
wente  that  thou  that  hast  been  to  me  so  leef  and  dere  and  thou  arte 
named  a  noble  knyghte  and  wold  betraye  me  for  the  richesse  of  the 
swerde.  But  now  goo  ageyn  lyghtly  for  thy  longe  taryeng  putteth  me 
in  grete  jeopardye  of  my  lyf.  For  I  haue  taken  colde,  and  but  yf  thou 
do  now  as  I  byd  the,  yf  euer  I  may  see  the  I  shal  slee  the  (wyth)  myn 
owne  handes,  for  thou  woldest  for  my  ryche  swerde  see  me  dede. 
Thenne  Syr  Bedwere  departed  and  wente  to  the  swerde  and  lyghtly 
took  hit  up,  and  wente  to  the  water  syde  and  there  he  bounde  the 
gyrdyl  aboute  the  hyltes,  and  thenne  he  threwe  the  swerde  as  farre  in 
to  the  water  as  he  myght,  &  there  cam  an  arme  and  a  hande  aboue  the 
water  and  mette  it,  &  caught  it  and  so  shoke  it  thryse  and  braundysshed, 
and  than  vanysshed  awaye  the  hande  wyth  the  swerde  in  the  water. 
So  syr  Bedwere  came  ageyn  to  the  kyng  and  tolde  hym  what  he  sawe. 
Alas  sayd  the  kyng  helpe  me  hens  for  I  drede  me  I  haue  taryed  ouer 
longe.  Than  syr  Bedwere  toke  the  kyng  vpon  his  backe  and  so  wente 
wyth  hym  to  that  water  syde ;  &  whan  they  were  at  the  water  syde, 
euyn  fast  by  the  banke  houed  a  lytyl  bai'ge  wyth  many  fayr  ladyes  in 
hit,  &  emonge  hem  al  was  a  queue,  and  al  they  had  blacke  hoodes,  and 
al  they  wepte  and  shryked  whan  they  sawe  Kyng  Arthur. 

Now  put  me  in  to  the  barge,  sayd  the  kyng  and  so  he  dyd  softelye. 
And  there  receyued  hym  thre  queues  wyth  grete  mornyng  and  soo  they 
sette  hem  doun,  and  in  one  of  their  lappes  kyng  Arthur  layd  hys  heed, 
and  than  that  queue  sayd,  a  dere  broder  why  haue  ye  taryed  so  longe 
from  me.  Alas  this  wounde  on  your  heed  hath  caught  ouermoche 
colde.     And  soo  than  they  rowed  from  the  londe,  and  syr  bedwere 


490  CAXTON's  ENGLISH  Lkct.  XI. 

behelde  all  tho  ladyes  goo  from  hym.  Than  syr  bedwere  cryed  a  my 
lord  Arthur  what  shal  become  of  me  now  ye  goo  from  me.  And  leue 
me  here  allone  emonge  myn  enemyes.  Comfort  thy  self  sayd  the  kyng 
and  doo  as  wel  as  thou  mayst,  for  in  me  is  no  truste  for  to  truste  in. 
For  I  wyl  in  to  the  vale  of  auylyon  to  hele  me  of  my  greuous  wounde. 
And  yf  thou  here  neuer  more  of  me  praye  for  my  soule,  but  euer  the 
queues  and  the  ladyes  wepte  and  shryched  that  hit  was  pyte  to  here. 
And  assone  as  syr  Bedwere  had  loste  the  syght  of  the  baarge  he  wepte 
and  waylled  and  so  took  the  foreste,  and  so  he  wente  al  that  nyght  and 
in  the  mornyng  he  was  ware  betwixte  two  holtes  hore  of  a  chapel  and 
an  ermytage. 

Caxton's  introduction  to  the  Morte  d' Arthur  is  rather  more 
thickly  sprinkled  with  French  and  Latin  words  than  his  ordinary 
writing,  but  it  is,  upon  the  whole,  a  fair  sample  of  his  style  and 
diction,  which,  it  will  be  observed,  contrasts  strongly  with  the 
Saxon-English  of  Malorye :  — 

After  that  I  had  accomplysshed  and  fynysshed  dyuers  hystoryes  as 
wel  of  contemplacyon  as  of  other  hystoryal  and  worldly  actes  of  grete 
conquerours  &  prynces.  And  also  certeyn  bookes  of  ensaumples  and 
doctryne.  Many  noble  and  dyuers  gentylmen  of  thys  royame  of 
Englond  cam  en  and  demaunded  me  many  and  oftymes,  wherfore  that  I 
haue  not  do  made  &  enprynte  the  noble  hystorye  of  the  saynt  greal, 
and  of  the  moost  renomed  crysten  Kyng.  Fyrst  and  chyef  of  the  thre 
best  crysten  and  worthy,  kyng  Arthur,  whyche  ought  moost  to  be  re- 
membred  emonge  vs  englysshe  men  tofore  al  other  crysten  kynges. 
For  it  is  notoyrly  knowen  thorugh  the  vnyuersal  world,  that  there  been 
ix  worthy  &  the  best  that  euer  were.  That  is  to  wete  thre  paynyms, 
thre  Jewes  and  thre  crysten  men.  As  for  the  paynyms  they  were  tofore 
the  Incarnacyon  of  Cryst,  whiche  were  named,  the  fyrst  Hector  of  Troye, 
of  whome  thystorye  is  comen  bothe  in  balade  and  in  prose.  The  second 
Alysaunder  the  grete,  &  the  thyrd  Julyus  Cezar  Emperour  of  Eome 
of  whome  thystoryes  ben  wel  kno  and  had.  And  as  for  the  thre  Jewes 
whyche  also  were  tofore  thyncarnacyon  of  our  lord  of  whome  the  fyrst 
was  Due  Josue  whyche  brought  the  chyldren  of  Israhel  in  to  the  londe 
of  byheste.  The  second  Dauyd  kyng  of  Jherusalem,  &  the  thyrd  Judas 
Machabeus  of  these  thre  the  byble  reherceth  al  theyr  noble  hystoryes 
&  actes.  And  sythe  the  sayd  Incarnacyon  haue  ben  thre  noble  crysten 
men  stalled  and  admytted  thorugh  the  vnyuersal  world  in  to  the  nombre 
of  the  ix  beste  &  worthy,  of  whome  was  fyrst  the  noble  Arthur  whose 


Lect.  XT.  ■  CAXTON's   ENGLISH  491 

noble  actes  I  purpose  to  wryte  in  thys  present  book  here  folowyng. 
The  second  was  Charlemayn  or  Charles  the  grete,  of  whome  thystorye 
is  had  in  many  places  bo  the  in  frensshe  and  englysshe,  and  the  thyrd 
and  last  was  Godefray  of  boloyn,  of  whose  actes  &  life  I  made  a  book 
vnto  thexcellent  prynce  and  kyng  of  noble  memorye  kyng  Edward  the 
fourth,  the  sayd  noble  Jentylmen  instantly  requyred  me  temprynte 
thystorye  of  the  sayd  noble  kyng  and  conquerour  king  Arthur,  and  of 
his  knyghtes  wyth  thystorye  of  the  saynt  greal,  and  of  the  deth  and 
endyng  of  the  sayd  Arthur.  AfFermyng  that  I  ouzt  rather  tenprynet 
his  actes  and  noble  feates,  than  of  godefroye  of  boloyne,  or  any  of  the 
other  eyght,  consyderyng  that  he  was  a  man  born  wythin  this  royame 
and  kyng  and  Emperour  of  the  same. 

And  that  there  ben  in  frensshe  dyuers  and  many  noble  volumes  of 
his  actes,  and  also  of  his  knyghtes.  To  whome  I  answered,  that  dyuers 
men  holde  oppynyon,  that  there  was  no  suche  Arthur,  and  that  alle 
suche  bookes  as  been  maad  of  hym,  ben  but  fayned  and  fables,  by  cause 
that  somme  cronycles  make  of  hym  no  mencyon  ne  remembre  hym  noo 
thynge  ne  of  his  knyghtes.  Wherto  they  answered,  and  one  in  specyal 
sayd,  that  in  hym  that  shold  say  or  thynke,  that  there  was  neuer  suche 
a  kyng  callyd  Arthur,  myght  wel  be  aretted  grete  folye  and  blyndenesse. 
For  he  sayd  that  there  were  many  euydences  of  the  contrarye.  Fyrst 
ye  may  see  his  sepulture  in  the  monasterye  of  Glastyngburye.  And 
also  in  polycronycon  in  the  v  book  the  syxte  chappytre,  and  in  the 
seuenth  book  the  xxiii"  chappytre  where  his  body  was  buryed  and  after 
founden  and  translated  in  to  the  sayd  monasterye,  ye  shal  se  also  in 
thystorye  of  bochas  in  his  book  de  casii  princijnim,  parte  of  his  noble 
actes,  and  also  of  his  falle.  Also  galfrydus  in  his  brutysshe  book  re- 
counteth  his  lyf,  and  in  diners  places  of  Englond,  many  remembraunces 
ben  yet  of  hym  and  shall  remayne  perpetuelly,  and  also  of  his  knyghtes. 
Fyrst  in  the  abbey  of  Westmestre  at  saynt  Edwardes  shryne  remayneth 
the  prynte  of  his  seal  in  reed  waxe  closed  in  beryll.  In  whych  is 
wryton  Patricius  Arthurus,  Britannie,  Gallie,  Germanie,  dacie,  Im- 
perator.  Item  in  the  castel  of  doner  ye  may  see  Gauwayns  skulle,  & 
Cradoks  mantel.  At  Wynchester  the  rounde  table,  in  other  places 
Launcelottes  swerde  and  many  other  thynges.  Thenne  al  these  thynges 
consydered  there  can  no  man  reasonably  gaynsaye  but  there  was  a  kyng 
of  thys  lande  named  Arthur.  For  in  al  places  crysten  and  hethen  he  is 
reputed  and  taken  for  one  of  the  ix  worthy.  And  the  fyrst  of  the  thre 
Crysten  men.  And  also  he  is  more  spoken  of  beyonde  the  see  moo 
bookes  made  of  his  noble  actes  than  there  be  in  englond  as  wel  in  duche 
ytalyen  spanysshe  and  grekysshe  as  in  frensshe.     And  yet  of  record  re- 


492  NEW  INFLUENCES  Lect.  XL 

mayne  in  wytnesse  of  hym  in  Wales  in  the  toune  of  Camelot  the  grete 
stones  &  meruayllous  werkys  of  yron  lyeng  vnder  the  grounde  &  ryal 
vautes  which  dyuers  now  lyuyng  hath  seen.  Wherfor  it  is  a  meruayl 
why  he  is  no  more  renomed  in  his  owne  contreye,  sauf  onelye  it  accordeth 
to  the  word  of  god,  whyche  sayth  that  no  man  is  accept  for  a  prophete 
in  his  owne  contreye.  Thene  all  these  thynges  forsayd  aledged  I  coude 
not  wel  denye,  but  that  there  was  suche  a  noble  kyng  named  arthur  and 
reputed  one  of  the  ix  worthy  &  fyrst  &  cheyf  of  the  cristen  men,  & 
many  noble  volumes  be  made  of  hym  &  of  his  noble  knyjtes  in  frensshe 
which  I  haue  seen  &  redde  beyonde  the  see  which  been  not  had  in  our 
maternal  tongue,  but  in  walsshe  ben  many  &  also  in  frensshe,  &  somme 
in  englysshe  but  no  wher  nygh  alle.  Wherfore  suche  as  haue  late  ben 
drawen  oute  biyefly  in  to  englysshe,  I  haue  after  the  symple  connyng 
that  god  hath  sente  to  me,  vnder  the  fauour  and  correctyon  of  al  noble 
lordcs  and  gentylmen  enprysed  to  enprynte  a  book  of  the  noble  hystoryes 
of  the  sayd  kynge  Arthur,  and  of  certeyn  of  his  knyghtes  after  a  copye 
vnto  me  delyuerd,  whyche  copye  Syr  Thomas  Malorye  dyd  take  oute  of 
certeyn  bookes  of  frensshe  and  reduced  it  in  to  Englysshe.  And  I 
accordyng  to  my  copye  haue  doon  sette  it  in  enprynte,  to  the  entente 
that  the  noble  men  may  see  and  lerne  the  noble  acts  of  chyualrye,  the 
jentyl  and  vertuous  dedes  that  somme  knyghtes  vsed  in  tho  dayes,  by 
whyche  they  came  to  honour,  and  how  they  that  were  vycious  were 
punysshed  and  ofte  put  to  shame  and  rebuke,  humbly  bysechyng  al 
noble  lordes  and  ladyes  Avyth  al  other  estates  of  what  estate  or  degree 
they  been  of,  that  shal  see  and  rede  in  this  sayd  book  and  werke,  that 
they  take  the  good  and  honest  actes  in  their  remembraunce,  and  to 
folowe  the  same.  Wherin  they  shalle  fynde  many  joyous  and  playsaunt 
hystoryes  and  noble  &  renomed  actes  of  humanyte,  gentylnesse  and 
chyualryes.  For  herein  may  be  seen  noble  chyualiye,  Curtosye,  Hu- 
manyte, frendlynesse,  hardynesse,  loue,  frendshyp,  Cowardyse,  Murdre, 
hate,  vertue,  and  synne.  Doo  after  the  good  and  leue  the  euyl,  and  it 
shal  brynge  you  to  good  fame  and  renommee.  And  for  to  passe  the 
tyme  this  book  shal  be  plesaunte  to  rede  in,  but  for  to  giue  fayth  and 
byleue  that  al  is  trewe  that  is  conteyned  herin,  ye  be  at  your  lyberte, 
but  al  is  wryton  for  our  doctryne,  and  for  to  beware  that  we  falle  not 
to  vyce  ne  synne,  but  texcercyse  and  folowe  vertu,  by  whyche  we  may 
come  and  atteyne  to  good  fame  and  renommee  in  thys  lyf,  and  after  thys 
shorte  and  transytorye  lyf  to  come  vnto  euerlastyng  blysse  in  heuen, 
the  whyche  he  graunt  vs  that  reygneth  in  heuen  the  blessyd  Trynyte. 
Amen. 

But  the   period  was  at  hand  when  the   four  great  events 


Lect.  XI.  BISHOP    FISHER  493 

I  mentioned  in  the  last  lecture  were  to  exert  upon  England 
the  full  strength  of  their  united  influence  ;  and  I  shall  now 
endeavour  to  point  out  the  effects  they  produced  during  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  though  I  shall  not  have 
space  always  to  distinguish  between  these  effects  as  referable 
to  this  or  that  particular  cause,  or  to  describe  specifically  the 
different  modes  in  which  those  causes  acted.  It  must  suffice, 
for  the  present,  to  say  that  the  influence  of  them  all  was  in  one 
and  the  same  direction.  They  all  tended  to  promote  a  wider 
and  more  generous  culture,  a  freer  and  bolder  spirit  of  inves- 
tigation, a  more  catholic  and  cosmopolitan  view  of  the  mutual 
relations  of  different  branches  of  the  human  family,  a  deeper 
insight  into  the  secrets  of  this  mysterious  life  of  ours,  and  a 
range  of  the  imagination  corresponding  to  the  vastly  enlarged 
field  of  observation  which  Avas  now  opened  to  the  vision  of  men. 

I  have  repeatedly  spoken  of  the  diction  of  theology  and 
religion  in  England,  as  having  always  been  in  a  more  advanced 
state  of  culture  than  that  of  secular  prose.  This  continued  to 
be  the  relation  of  the  two  dialects,  not  only  through  the 
period  to  which  my  sketches  extend,  but  until  after  the  Eesto- 
ration  of  Charles  II.  From  that  epoch,  theology  declined  in 
general  estimation,  and  was  no  longer  regarded  as  a  necessary 
study  for  laymen  of  finished  education.  Its  dialect  was  of 
course  neglected,  and  in  the  space  of  a  single  generation  it  lost, 
and  has  never  since  recovered,  its  ancient  superiority  over  the 
tongue  of  secular  life. 

An  extract  from  a  sermon  delivered  by  Bishop  Fisher  in 
1509,  in  memory  of  the  Countess  of  Derby,  mother  of  King 
Henry  VII.,  will  serve  to  show  the  character  and  condition  of 
the  language  when  employed  for  solemn  and  religious  purposes 
at  this  period :  — 

This  holy  Gofpel  late  red  contayneth  in  it  a Dyalogue,  that  is  to  fay 
a  Commynication  betwixt  the  Woman  of  blelTyd  Memory,  called 
Martha,  and  our  Savyour  Jhefu.  Which  Dyalogue  I  would  apply  unto 
this  noble  Prynces  late  cleceafyd,  in  wliofe  remembrance  this  office  and 


494 


BISHOP   FISIIEIl 


Lect.  XI, 


obfervances  be  done  at  this  time.  And  tlire  tliyngs  by  the  leave  of 
God  I  will  .entende.  Firft,  to  fhew  wherein  this  Prynces  may  well  be 
lykned  and  compared  unto  the  bleflyd  Woman  Martha.  Second,  how 
fhe  may  complain  unto  our  Savyour  Jhefu  for  the  paynful  dethe  of  her 
body,  like  as  Martha  dyd  for  the  dethe  of  her  Broder  Lazarus.  Thyrde, 
the  comfortable  Anfwere  of  our  Savyour  Jhefu  unto  her  again.  In  the 
firft  IhaU  ftand  her  prayfe  and  commendation;  In  the  fecounde,  our 
mournynge  for  the  grete  lofs  of  hyrr ;  In  the  thyrd,  our  comfort  again. 

Fyrft  I  fay,  the  comparyfon  of  them  two  may  be  made  in  four  thyngs ; 
In  noblenefs  of  Perfon,  In  difcypline  of  their  Bodys,  In  orderyng  of 
their  Souls  to  God,  In  Hofpytalytyes  kepping,  and  charytable  dealyng 
to  their  Neighbours.  In  which  four,  the  noble  Woman  Martha  (as  iay 
the  Doftors,  entreatynge  this  Gofpel  and  hyr  Lyfe)  was  Angularly  to  be 
commended  and  prayfed :  Avherefore  let  us  confider  lykewife,  whether 
in  this  noble  CountefTe  may  ony  thynge  like  be  founde. 

Firfte,  the  bleffed  Martha  was  a  woman  of  noble  blode,  to  whom  by 
inherytance  belonged  the  Caftle  of  Bethany ;  and  this  noblenefs  of  blode 
they  have,  which  defcended  of  noble  Lynage.  Befide  this,  there  is  a 
noblenefs  of  maners,  withouten  which,  the  noblenefs  of  blode  is  moche 
defaced,  for  as  Boecius  fayth,  if  oughte  be  good  in  the  noblenefs  of 
blode,  it  is  for  that  thereby  the  noble  men  and  women  fliolde  be 
afhamed,  to  go  out  of  kynde,  from  the  vertuous  maners  of  their  aun- 
cetrye  before.  Yet  alfo  there  is  another  noblenelTe,  which  aryfeth  in 
every  Perfon,  by  the  goodneffe  of  nature,  whereby  fall  often  fuch  as 
come  of  ryghte  pore  and  unnoble  Fader  and  Moder,  have  grete  abletees 
of  nature  to  noble  dedes.  Above  all  the  fame,  there  is  a  foure  maner 
of  noblenelTe,  which  may  be  called,  an  encreafed  noblenelTe,  as  by  mar- 
ryage  and  affynyte  of  more  noble  perfons ;  fuch  as  were  of  lelTe  con- 
dycyon,  may  encreafe  in  hygher  degree  of  noblenelTe. 

In  every  of  thefe,  I  fuppofe,  this  CountelTe  was  noble.  Fyrft,  Ihe 
came  of  noble  blode,  lyneally  defcendyng  of  Kynge  Edward  the  ;d. 
within  the  foure  degree  of  the  fame.  Her  Fader  was  Johan  Duke  of 
Somerfet,  her  Moder  Avas  called  Margarete,  ryghte  noble  as  well  in 
maners,  as  in  blode,  to  whom  Ihe  was  a  veray  Daughter  in  all  noble 
maners,  for  Ihe  was  bounteous  and  lyberal  to  every  Perfon  of  her 
knowledge  or  acquaintance.  Avarice  and  Covetyfe  llie  moft  hated,  and 
forowed  it  full  moche  in  all  perfons,  but  fpecially  in  ony,  that  belong'd 
unto  her.  She  was  alfo  of  fyngular  Eafynefs  to  be  fpoken  unto,  and 
full  curtayfe  anfwere  Ihe  would  make  to  all  that  came  unto  her.  Of 
mervayllous  gentylenefs  Ihe  was  unto  all  folks,  but  fpecially  unto  her 
owne,  whom  ftie  trufted  and  loved  ryghte  tenderly.      Unkynde  ftie 


Lect.  XI.  LOED   BEUNERS  S   FEOISSART  495 

wolde  not  be  unto  no  creature,  ne  forgetful!  of  ony  kyndnefs  or  fervyce 
done  to  her  before,  which  is  no  lytel  part  of  veray  noblenefs.  She  was 
not  vengeable,  ne  cruell,  but  redy  anone  to  forgete  and  forgyve  injuryes 
done  unto  her,  at  the  leell  defyre  or  mocyon  made  unto  her  for  the 
fame.  Mercy  full  alfo  and  pyteous  fhe  was  unto  fuch,  as  was  grevyed 
and  wrongfully  troubled,  and  to  them  that  were  in  Poverty,  or  feke- 
nefs,  or  any  other  myfery. 

To  God  and  to  the  Chirche  full  obedient  and  tradable.  Serchynge 
his  honour  and  plefure  full  befyly.  A  warenefs  of  her  felf  fhe  had 
alway  to  efchewe  every  thyng,  that  myght  difhoneft  ony  noble  Woman, 
or  dillayne  her  honour,  in  ony  condycyon.  Fryvelous  thyngs,  that 
were  lytell  to  be  regarded,  fhe  wold  let  pafs  by,  but  the  other,  that 
were  of  weyght  and  fubftance,  wherein  fhe  myght  proufyte,  fhe  wolde 
not  let  for. ony  payne  or  labour,  to  take  upon  hande.  Thefe  and  many 
other  fuch  noble  condycyons,  lefb  unto  her  by  her  Ancetres,  fhe  kept 
and  encreafed  therein,  with  a  greate  dylygence. 

The  third  noblenefs  alfo  fhe  wanted  not,  which  I  fayd,  was  the  noble- 
nefs of  Nature.  She  had  in  a  maner  all  that  was  prayfable  in  a 
Woman,  either  in  Soul  or  Body.  Fyrll,  Ihe  was  of  fmgular  Wifedom 
ferre  pafTyng  the  comyn  rate  of  women.  She  was  good  in  remem- 
braunce  and  of  holdyng  memorye,  a  redye  wytte  ihe  had  alfo  to 
conceive  all  thyngs,  albeit  they  were  ryghte  derke  :  Eight  ftudious  fhe 
was  in  Bokes,  which  fhe  had  in  grete  number,  both  in  Englyfh  and  in 
Frenfhe,  and  for  her  exercife  and  for  the  profyte  of  others,  fhe  did 
tranflate  divers  maters  of  Devocyon  out  of  'the  Frenfh  into  Englyfh. 
Full  often  flie  complayned,  that  in  her  youthe,  fhe  had  not  given  her  to 
the  underftanding  of  Latin,  wherein  fhe  had  a  lytell  perceyvyng, 
fpecyally  of  the  Eubryflie  of  the  Drdynall,  for  the  faying  of  her  Servyce, 
which  fhe  did  well  underfland.  Hereunto  in  favour,.in  words,  in  geilure, 
in  every  demeanour  of  herfelf  fo  grete  noblenefs  did  appear,  that  what 
fhe  fpake  or  dyde,  it  mervaylloufly  became  her. 

The  most  important  English  work  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  whether  as  a  philological  monument,  or  as  a 
production  which  could  not  have  failed  to  exert  an  influence  on 
the  tone  of  English  literature,  is  Lord  Berners's  Translation  of 
the  Chronicles  of  Froissart,  the  first  volume  of  which  was 
published  in  1523,  the  second  in  1525.  Lord  Berners  had  been 
distinguished  in  military  and  civil  life,  in  which  he  continued 
actively  engaged  until  he  returned  from  a  mission  to  Spain  in 


496  LORD  BEKNERS'S   FROISSART  Lect.  XL 

1518,  and  was  appointed  to  the  responsible,  but,  apparently,  not 
very  laborious,  post  of  Governor  of  Calais,  which  then  belonged 
to  the  English  crown.  He  occupied  his  leisure  with  literary 
pursuits,  and,  besides  the  Chronicles  of  Froissart,  he  translated 
Arthur  of  Little  Britain,  an  absurd  romance  of  chivalry,  and 
several  other  works.  He  states,  in  the  preface  to  Froissart, 
and  elsewhere,  that  the  task  was  undertaken  by  command  of 
Henry  VIII.  The  translation  of  so  voluminous  a  work  was 
probably  not  begun  until  his  retirement  to  a  post  of  comparative 
quiet ;  and  if  we  suppose  that  he  devoted  the  same  time  to  the 
first  as  to  the  second  volume,  it  must  have  been  commenced 
about  the  year  1521. 

Notwithstanding  the  sworn  friendship  between  Henry  VIII. 
and  Francis  I.  —  of  which  so  ostentatious  a  profession  was  made 
at  the  famous  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  in  1520 — Henry  was 
cajoled  by  the  adroit  flattery  bestowed  on  him  by  the  Papal 
Court,  for  his  Treatise  on  the  Seven  Sacraments,  into  a  secret 
league  with  Pope  Leo  X.  and  Charles  V.,  then  King  of  Spain, 
but  not  yet  emperor,  against  Francis  I.  This  alliance  was 
concluded  in  November  1521,  and  in  the  summer  of  1522 
Henry  commenced  hostilities  against  France.  The  extrava- 
gant prodigality  of  the  English  prince,  in  royal  festivities  and 
other  showy  but  unprofitable  expenditures,  had  exhausted  the 
treasures  which  the  avarice  of  his  father  had  accumulated,  and 
he  was  obliged  to  resort  to  the  most  burdensome  and  unjust 
measures  to  replenish  his  exchequer  and  prepare  for  the  foreign 
war  in  which  he  was  about  to  engage. 

It  is  a  not  improbable  conjecture,  that  the  hope  of  reconciling 
the  English  people  to  the  expenses  and  sacrifices  of  a  war  with 
France  was  a  prominent  motive  with  the  king  for  desiring  a 
translation  of  Froissart  to  appear  at  this  time.  However  this 
may  be,  few  things  could  have  been  better  calculated  to 
accomplish  this  object  than  the  brilliant  and  picturesque 
sketches  given,  by  the  most  delightful  of  chroniclers,  of  the 
exploits   of  the   Black   Prince,   and   of  the   other  numerous 


Lect.  XL  LORD   BEENERS'S   FROISSART  497 

instances  of  heroic  daring  and  chivalrous  achievement  with 
which  his  spirited  pages  glitter.  A  large  part  of  France  was  the 
undoubted  patrimony  of  the  Norman  dynasty  in  England,  and 
there  had  been  questionable  claims  to  other  still  more  extensive 
provinces.  The  revival  of  the  memory  of  these  asserted  rights 
might  be  expected  to  have,  by  appealing  to  the  interests  and  the 
pride  of  England,  a  powerful  effect  in  exciting  the  ambition  of 
the  people,  and  inducing  them  cheerfully  to  submit  to  the  new 
burdens  which  a  war  with  France  would  impose  upon  them. 

Lord  Berners's  translation  of  FrOissart  was  the  first  really 
important  work  printed  in  the  English  language,  relating  to 
modern  history.  It  was  almost  the  only  accessible  source  of 
information  respecting  the  local  history  of  England,  and  her 
relations  to  the  Continental  powers,  in  the  fourteenth  century ; 
for  though  the  scene  is  for  the  most  part  laid  in  France  and 
Spain,  5^et  it  contains  a  pretty  full  account  of  the  wars  of 
Edward  III.  with  the  Scots,  and  of  the  insurrectionary  move- 
ments in  the  time  of  Eichard  II. ;  and,  moreover,  England  was 
a  direct  party  to  almost  every  event  which  it  narrates  as  belong- 
ing more  immediately  to  the  domestic  history  of  France  or 
of  Spain. 

The  entire  subject,  then,  was  one  of  special  interest  to  the 
English  people,  and  the  extraordinary  literary  merit  and  the 
popular  character  of  the  work  eminently  fitted  it,  both  to 
initiate  Englishmen  into  a  knowledge  of  some  of  the  principal 
epochs  of  their  own  national  life,  and  to  promote  a  taste  for 
historical  reading  and  composition.  It  must,  therefore,  inde- 
pendently of  its  philological  worth,  be  considered  as  a  work  of 
great  importance  in  English  literary  history,  because  it  un- 
doubtedly contributed  essentially  to  give  direction  to  literary 
pursuits  in  England,  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundation  of  an  entire 
and  very  prominent  branch  of  native  literature. 

It  was  soon  followed  by  a  considerable  number  of  new 
English  histories,  such  as  those  of  Hall  and  Fabian,  and  by 
editions  and  continuations  of  earlier  annalists,  as,  for  example, 


498  LORD   BERNERS  S   FROISSART  Lect.  XI. 

of  Hardynge ;  and  we  are  therefore  probably  indebted  for  these, 
such  as  they  are,  and  in  some  degree  even  for  the  more  valuable 
compilation  of  Holinshed,  to  the  impulse  given  to  historical 
studies  by  the  publication  of  Lord  Eerners's  Froissart. 

The  translation  is  executed  with  great  skill ;  for  while  it  is 
faithful  to  the  text,  it  adheres  so  closely  to  the  English  idiom 
that  it  has  altogether  the  air  of  an  original  work,  and,  with  the 
exception  of  here  and  there  a  single  phrase,  it  would  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  passage  which  exhibits  decisive  internal  evidence 
of  having  been  first  composed  in  a  foreign  tongue. 

The  account  of  the  origin  of  the  great  schism  in  the  four- 
teenth century  is  as  follows : — 

Anon  after  the  detlie  of  the  pope  Gregory,  the  cardynalles  drew 
them  into  the  conclave,  in  the  palays  of  saynt  Peter.  Anone  after,  as 
they  were  entred  to  chose  a  pope,  acordyng  to  their  vsage,  such  one  as 
shuld  be  good  and  profytable  for  holy  churche,  the  romayns  assembled 
the  togyder  in  a  great  nombre,  and  came  into  the  bowrage  of  saynt 
Peter  :  they  were  to  the  nombre  of  xxx.  thousand  what  one  and  other, 
in  the  entent  to  do  yuell,  if  the  mater  went  nat  accordynge  to  their 
appetytes.  And  they  came  oftentymes  before  the  conclaue,  and  sayd, 
liarke,  ye  sir  cardynalles,  d'clyuer  you  atones,  and  make  a  pope ;  ye 
tary  to  longe  ;  if  ye  make  a  romayne,  we  woll  nat  chaung  him ;  but  yf 
ye  make  any  other,  the  romayne  people  and  counsayles  woll  nat  take 
hym  for  pope,  and  ye  putte  yourselfe  all  in  aduenture  to  be  slayne. 
The  cardynals,  who  were  as  than  in  the  danger  of  the  romayns,  and 
herde  well  those  wordes,  they  were  nat  at  their  ease,  nor  assured  of 
their  lyues,  and  so  apeased  them  of  their  yre  as  well  as  they  myght 
with  fayre  wordes ;  but  somoche  rose  the  felony  of  the  romayns,  y* 
suche  as  were  next  to  y®  conclaue,  to  thentent  to  make  the  cardynalles 
afrayde,  and  to  cause  them  to  codiscende  the  rather  to  their  opinyons, 
brake  vp  the  dore  of  the  conclaue,  whereas  the  cardynalles  were. 
Than  the  cardynalles  went  surely  to  haue  been  slayne,  and  so  fledde 
away  to  saue  their  lyues,  some  one  waye  and  some  another ;  but  the 
romayns  were  nat  so  content,  but  toke  them  and  put  them  togyder 
agayn,  whether  they  wolde  or  nat.  The  cardynalles  than  seynge  the- 
selfe  in  the  daunger  of  the  romayns,  and  in  great  parell  of  their  lyues, 
agreed  among  themselfe,  more  for  to  please  the  people  than  for  any 
deuocyon ;  howbeit,  by  good  electyon  they  chase  an  holy  man,  a  car- 
dynall  of  the  romayne  nacion,  whome  pope  Vrbayne  the  fyfte  had 


Lect.  XI.  •  LORD   BERNERS'S    FROISSART  499 

made  cardynall,  and  he  was  called  before,  the  cardynall  of  saynt  Peter. 
This  electyon  pleased  greatly  y^  romayns,  and  so  this  good  man  had  all 
the  ryghtes  that  belonged  to  the  papalite ;  hoAvebeit  he  lyued  nat  but 
thre  dayes  after,  and  I  shall  shewe  you  why.  The  romayns,  who  de- 
syred  a-  pope  of  their  owne  nacion,  were  so  ioyfull  of  this  newe  pope, 
y*  they  toke  hym,  who  was  a  hundred  yere  of  age,  and  sette  hym  on  a 
whyte  mule,  and  so  ledde  him  vp  and  doune  through  y<^  cy tie  of  Rome, 
exaltyng  him,  and  shewyng  howe  they  had  vaquesshed  the  cardynals, 
seyng  they  had  a  pope  romayn  accordyng  to  their  owne  ententes,  in  so 
moche  that  the  good  holy  man  was  so  sore  traueyled  that  he  fell  syck, 
and  so  dyed  the  thyrde  daye,  and  was  buryed  in  the  churche  of  saynt 
Peter,  and  there  he  lyethe. — "Reprint  of  1812,  vol.  i.  pp.  510,  511. 

Of  the  dethe  of  this  pope,  the  cardynalles  were  right  sorowfuU,  for 
they  saw  Avell  hoAve  the  mater  shulde  nat  goo  well  to  passe  :  for  they 
had  thought  if  y*  pope  had  lyued,  to  haue  dissimuled  amonge  the 
romayns  for  two  or  thre  yeres,  and  at  the  laste  to  haue  brought  the  see 
apostolyke  into  some  other  place  than  at  Rome,  at  Napoles,  or  at 
Gennes,  out  of  the  daunger  of  the  romayns :  but  y®  dethe  of  the  pope 
brake  their  purj)ose.  Than  the  cardynalles  went  agayne  into  the  con- 
claue  in  greater  danger  than  they  were  in  before,  for  y®  romayns  assem- 
bled them  togyder  agayne  before  the  conclaue,  and  made  semblant  to 
breke  it  vp,  and  to  slee  them  all,  if  they  dyde  nat  chose  a  pope  acordyng 
to  their  myndes,  and  cryed  to  the  cardynalles,  and  sayd.  Sirs,  aduyse 
yowe  well :  if  ye  delyuer  vs  a  pope  romayne  we  be  content,  or  els  we 
woll  make  your  heedes  reeder  than  your  hattes  be  :  suche  wordes  and 
manasshes  abasshed  greatly  y®  cardynals,  for  they  hadde  rather  a  dyed 
confessours  than  martyrs.  Than  to  brynge  themselfe  out  of  that  daun- 
ger and  parell,  they  made  a  pope,  but  he  was  none  of  the  coUedge  of 
cardynals,  he  was  archbysshop  of  Bare,  a  great  clerke,  who  greatly  had 
traueyled  for  the  welthe  of  holy  churche ;  with  his  promocyon  of 
popalyte,  the  romayns  were  apeased,  for  the  cardynall  of  Genne  put 
out  his  heed  out  at  a  wyndowe  of  the  conclaue,  and  sayd  on  hygh  to  y® 
people  of  Rome,  Sirs,  apease  you,  for  you  haue  a  pope  romayne,  and 
that  is  Bartylmewe  des  Angles,  archbysshop  of  Bare  :  the  people  aun- 
swered  all  with  one  voyce,  than  we  be  content ;  the  same  archebysshoppe 
was  nat  as  than  at  Rome,  I  thynke  he  was  in  Napoles.  Than  he  was 
incontynent  sent  for,  of  the  whiche  tydynges  he  was  ryght  glad,  and  so 
came  to  Rome ;  and  at  his  comyng  there  was  great  feest  made  to  hym  ; 
and  so  he  had  all  the  ryghtes  that  parteyned  to  the  papalyte,  and  was 
called  Vrban  the  sixt  of  that  name  :  the  romayns  had  great  ioy :  his 
creacyon  was  signified  to  all  the  churches  of  cristentie,  and  also  to 


500  LORD   BERNERS'S   FROISSART  .        Lect.  XL 

emperours,  kynges,  dukes,  and  erles  ;  and  the  cardynalles  sent  worde  to 
all  their  frendes,  that  he  was  chosen  by  good  and  trewe  electyon  ;  how- 
beit,  some  of  them  repented  them  after,  that  they  had  spoken  so  largely 
in  the  mater.  This  pope  renounced  all  graces  gyuen  before,  and  so 
dyuers  departed  fro  their  countres  and  places,  and  went  to  Eome  to 
haue  grace. — Vol.  i.  p.  511. 

It  hath  ben  long  sithe  I  spake  of  holy  church ;  now  I  wyll  retourne 
therto,  the  mater  requyreth  it.  Ye  haue  well  herde  here  before,  howe 
by  the  exortacyon  of  the  romayns,  the  cardynalles,  who  as  than  raygned, 
to  apease  the  people  of  Eome,  who  were  greatly  moued  against  the, 
made  a  pope  of  the  archbysshoprike  of  Bari,  called  before  Bartylmewe 
des  Angles  :  he  receyued  the  papalyte,  and  was  called  Vrbayne  the  sixe, 
and  so  opyned  grace  as  the  vsage  was.  Thentencyon  of  dyuers  of  y® 
cardynals  was,  y'  whan  they  myght  se  a  better  hour  and  tyme,  they 
wolde  agayn  retourne  to  their  election,  bycause  this  pope  was  nat  pl'o-r 
iytable  for  them,  nor  also  to  the  church  as  they  said,  for  he  was  a 
fumisshe  man  and  malincolyous ;  so  that  wha  he  sawe  hymselfe  in 
prosperyte  and  in  puyssance  of  the  papalyte,  and  that  dyuers  kynges 
cristned  were  ioyned  to  him,  and  wrote  to  him,  and  dyde  put  them 
vnder  his  obeysaunce,  whereof  he  waxed  proude  and  worked  all  on 
heed,  and  wolde  haue  taken  away  fro  y®  cardynals  dyuers  of  their 
rightes  and  olde  customes,  the  whiche  greatly  displeased  them :  and  so 
they  spake  togyder,  and  ymagined  howe  he  was  nat  well  worthy  to 
gouerne  the  worlde ;  wherfore  they  purposed  to  choose  another  pope, 
sage  and  discrete,  by  whom  the  churche  shulde  be  well  gouerned.  To 
this  purpose  the  cardynals  putte  to  all  their  payne,  and  specially  he  y* 
was  after  chosen  to  be  pope  :  thus  all  a  somer  they  wer  in  this  pur- 
pose ;  for  they  that  entended  to  make  a  newe  pope  durst  nat  shewe  their 
myndes  generally,  bycause  of  the  romayns ;  so  that  in  the  tyme  of  the 
vacacyon  in  the  courte,  dyuers  cardynals  departed  fro  Eome,  and  went 
about  Eome  to  sport  the  in  dyuers  places  at  their  pleasure.  And  pope 
Vrbane  went  to  another  cytie  called  Tyeulle,  and  ther  he  lay  a  long 
season,  in  this  vacacion  tyme,  whiche  myght  nat  longe  endure :  for  at 
Eome  ther  were  many  clerkes  of  sudrie  places  of  the  worlde,  abydinge 
for  graces,  the  whiche  was  promysed  to  dyuers  of  them.  Than  the 
cardynals  all  of  one  acorde  assembled  togyder,  and  their  voyces  rested 
on  sir  Eobert  of  Genesue,  somtyme  sonne  to  the  erle  of  Genesue.  His 
first  promocyon  was,  he  was  bysshoppe  of  Therouene,  and  after  bys- 
shoppe  of  Cambrey,  and  he  was  called  cardynal  of  Genesue.  At  this 
election  Avere  the  most  parte  of  the  cardynals,  and  he  was  called  Cle- 
ment.— p.  547. 


Lect.  XI.        .  MORE'S   life   of    RICHARD  III.  501 

Lord  Berners's  orthography  is  irregular  and  confused ;  but 
this  is  probably,  in  a  considerable  degree,  the  fault  of  he 
printers,  who  at  that  time  were  generally  Germans  or  Dutch- 
men, little  acquainted  with  English.  His  syntax  is  marked  by 
archaisms,  such  as  the  use  of  the  form  in  -th  in  the  third  per- 
son singular  present  indicative,  and  not  unfrequently  in  the 
plural  and  in  the  imperative ;  and  his  style,  like  that  of  other 
secular  compositions  up  to  this  period,  is  much  less  advanced  in 
philological  development  than  the  diction  of  contemporaneous 
theological  literature,  or,  with  the  exception  of  an  inflection  or 
two,  even  than  that  of  Pecock,  who  lived  three  quarters  of  a 
century  earlier.  The  difference,  however,  between  Lord  Ber- 
ners  and  Fisher,  from  whom  I  have  given  an  extract,  is  not 
wholly  owing  to  the  superior  culture  of  the  theological  dialect, 
but  partly  to  the  fact  that  Lord  Berners  wrote  in  advanced  life. 
His  style,  though  more  idiomatic  than  most  of  the  productions 
of  Caxton's  press,  had  probably  been  formed  by  the  perusal  of 
those  works,  and  the  long  years  he  had  spent  in  camp  and 
council  had  allowed  him  no  leisure  to  keep  up  with  the  later 
philological  improvement  of  his  native  tongue. 

There  is  another  historical  work  of  the  first  half  cf  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  style  of  which  exhibits  a  later  phase  of 
the  language  than  Lord  Berners's  Froissart,  or  than  any  other 
secular  prose  composition  of  its  own  period:  I  refer  to  the 
celebrated  Life  of  Eichard  IIL,  ascribed  to  Sir  Thomas  More, 
which  first  appeared  anonymously  in  Grafton's  edition  of 
Hardynge's  Chronicle,  printed  in  1543.*  In  this  edition  it  was, 
in  all  probability,  modernized  to  the  standard  of  the  times,  and 
I  strongly  suspect  that  this  process  was  carried  farther  still  by 
Eastell,  who  published  More's  works  in  1557.  Rastell,  indeed, 
complains  that  the  text,  as  given  by  Grafton  in  Hardynge,  and 
in  Hall's  Chronicle,  is  '  very  muche  corrupte  in  many  places, 
sometyme  hauyng  lesse,  and  sometime  hauing  more,  and  altered 
in   wordes  and  whole  sentences :  muche  varying  from  the  copie 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  VI.  p.  124. 


502  SIR   THOMAS   MOKE  Lect.  XL 

of  his  own  hand,  by  which  thys  is  printed ;'  but  I  find  it  difficult 
to  believe  that  either  the  orthography  or  the  syntax  of  Eastell's 
edition  is  that  of  the  year  1513,  when  the  work  is  alleged  to 
have  been  *  written,' though  left  *  unfinished.'* 

Although  the  historical  value  of  this  work  is  questionable,  it  is 
of  much  philological  importance,  because  it  is  indisputably  the 
best  English  secular  prose  which  had  yet  been  written.  The  excel- 
lence of  its  style  is  such  as  an  Englishman  in  that  age  could  have 
attained  only  by  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  more  advanced 
diction  of  the  theological  literature  of  the  English  language. 
This  acquaintance  More  certainly  possessed  in  a  high  degree,  but 
his  own  controversial  writings  are  inflamed  by  a  passion  which 
destroyed  his  mastery  over  self,  and  betrayed  him,  not  only  into 
hasty  and  violent  expression,  but  into  a  confusion  of  thought 
which  is  remarkable  in  a  man  otherwise  so  clear-headed.f 

More  became  a  madman  the  moment  he  approached  the 
question  of  religious  reform.^     He  wished  to  have  it  engraved 

*  See  Longer  Notes  and  Illustrations,  I.,  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

t  A  striking  instance  of  this  will  be  found  in  the  First  Series,  Lecture  XXVI. 
p.  58  L 

I  His  opponents  declared  that  he  delighted  in  worrying  those  unsound  in  the 
faith,  and  that,  not  content  with  the  torture  scientifically  applied,  in  pursuance  of 
his  orders,  by  the  regular  professors  of  that  art  attached  to  the  prisons,  he  set 
up  an  amateur  inquisition  in  his  own  garden,  where  he  used  to  tie  persons  sus- 
pected of  heresy  to  a  tree,  which  he  jocosely  called  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  have 
them  soundly  whipped,  after  which  he  accompanied  them  to  the  Tower  to  see 
them  racked  secundum  artem.  All  this  More  denies,  and  it  is  fair  to  let  him 
have  the  benefit  of  his  traverse  in  his  own  words.  '  Dyuers  of  them,'  says  he, 
*  haue  sayd  that  of  suche  as  were  in  my  howse  whyle  I  was  chauncellour,  I  A'sed 
to  examyne  them  wyth  turmentes,  causynge  them  to  be  bouden  to  a  tre  in  my 
gardyn,  and  there  pituously  beten.  *  *  *  For  of  very  trouth,  albe  it  that 
for  a  great  robbery  or  a  heyghnouse  murder,  or  sacryledge  in  a  chyrche,  wyth 
caryenge  away  the  pyxe  wyth  the  blessed  sacrament,  or  vylanously  castynge  it 
out,  I  caused  some  tyme  such  thynges  to  be  done  by  some  oflfycers  of  the  marshalsy 
or  of  some  other  prysos  wyth  whyche  orderynge  of  them  by  theyr  well  deserued 
payne,  &  wythout  any  greate  hurte  that  afterwarde  sholde  stycke  by  them, 
I  founde  out  and  repressed  many  suche  desperate  wreches,  as  ellys  had  not  fayled 
to  haue  gone  ferther  abrode,  &  to  haue  done  to  many  good  folke  a  gret  deale 
mych  more  harme ;  yet  though  I  so  dyd  i  theues,  murderers,  and  robbers  of 
chyrches,  and  notwythstandynge  also  that  heretyJces  be  yet  mych  worse  then  al  they^ 
yet  sauyng  onely  theyr  sure  kepynge,  I  neuer  dyd  els  cause  any  such  thyng  to  be 


Lect.  XI.  SIR   THOMAS   MORE  503 

on  his  tombstone  that  he  was  'Furibus,  Homicidis,  Hcereticisque 
molest  us  f'  the  scourge  of  Thieves,  Murderers,  and  Heretics, 
capping  the  climax  with  the  heretic,  as  the  greatest  malefactor 
of  the  three.  But  More  is  not  the  only  public  functionary 
who  has  desired  that  his  funeral  monument  should  perpetuate 
the  infamy  of  his  most  criminal  abuses  of  power.* 

We  ought  not  to  expect  to  find,  in  the  controversial  writings  of 
a  man  inspired  by  such  furious  passions,  models  of  elegance  or 
correctness  of  style,  and  accordingly  it  is  only  in  the  Life  of 
Eichard  III.  that  More  seems  to  deserve  the  praise  so  often 
bestowed  upon  him  as  one  of  the  first  great  English  prose 
writers.f 

More's  Life  of  Eichard  IIL  is  found  not  only  in  the  complete 
edition  of  his  works  published  in  1557,  but  in  Hardynge,  Hall, 
and  Holinshed.  It  is,  therefore,  readily  accessible,  and  it  has 
been  so  often  quoted  as  to  be  in  some  degree  familiar  to  all 
students  of  English  literature.  I  prefer,  therefore,  to  illustrate 
his  style  by  an  extract  from  some  of  his  less  known  writings ; 
and  I   select,  for  that  purpose,  the    rarest   of   them  all,  the 


done  to  any  of  them  all  in  all  my  lyfe.' — The  Apologye  of  syr  Thomas  More, 
knyght,  1533,  fs.  195,  196  (Collected  Works,  edition  of  1557,  p.  901).  He  then 
proceeds  to  state  two  exceptions  where  he  admits  that  he  applied  corporal 
chastisement,  one  to  '  a  chylde  and  a  seruaunt '  in  his  own  house,  for  speaking 
and  teaching  '  vngracyouse  hcresye  agaynst  the  blessed  sacrament  of  the  aulter,' 
and  another  where  the  same  discipline  was  administered  to  a  half-insane  person 
for  gross  indecency  of  behaviour  at  public  worship.  He  proceeds  :  '  And  of  all 
that  euer  came  in  my  hande  for  heresy,  as  helpe  me  God,  sauynge  as  I  sayd  the 
sure  keping  of  them,  and  yet  not  so  sure  neyther  but  that  George  Constantyne 
eoulde  stele  awaye ;  ellys  had  neucr  any  of  them  any  strype  or  stroke  gyne  them, 
so  mych  as  a  fylyppe  on  the  forhed,'  More's  method  of  '  sure  keping '  of  persons 
charged  with  heresy,  it  appears,  was  to  confine  them  in  the  stocks  in  his  garden, 
where  the  inconyenience  they  endured  from  exposure  to  the  weather,  and  from  the 
painful  mode  by  which  they  were  secured,  was,  of  itself,  a  torture  as  inhuman  as 
the  infliction  of  the  rod.  Upon  the  whole,  then,  his  own  evidence  convicts  him 
of  being  an  uncharitable  hater  and  a  cruel  persecutor  of  those  who  differed  from 
him  in  religious  opinion. 

*  James  Buchanan  is  said  to  have  expressed  the  wish  that  the  word  'Le- 
COMPTON '  might  be  carved  on  the  slab  which  should  cover  his  grave. 

t  See,  on  the  authorship  of  this  work,  Fii-st  Series,  Lecture  VI.  p.  124. 


504  SIR   THOMAS   MORE  Lect.   XI. 

unpaged  leaf  between  pp.  1138  and  1139  of  Eastell's  edition, 
which  is  wanting  in  very  many  copies :  — 

After  that  sir  Thomas  More  hadde  caused  to  be  printed  this  lasto 
booke  (intitled :  the  answer  to  the  first  parte  of  the  poysoned  boke, 
whicli  a  namelesse  heretike  hath  named  the  supper  of  the  lord)  he  Avrote 
and  caused  to  bee  printed  in  the  ende  thereof  (after  certaine  corrcccions 
of  faultes  escaped  in  the  printyng  thereof)  this  that  followeth : 

Sir  Thomas  More  knighte 
to  the  christen  reader. 

After  these  faultes  of  the  printer  escaped  in  this  boke,  I  shall  not 
let,  good  reders,  to  geue  you  like  warnynge  of  one  faute  of  myne  owne, 
escaped  me  in  my  booke  Jaste  put  forth  of  the  debellacion  of  Salem  and 
Byzance.  In  y®  first  chapter  wherof  (Numero.  933.  and  in  the  seconde 
colume)  cancell  and  putte  out  one  of  those  ouersightes  that  I  lay  to  y® 
pacifier,  in  those  ix  lines,  of  which  the  first  is  the  ii  line  of  y^  same 
cohune,  and  the  last  is  the  19  (the  first  of  which  9  lines  beginneth 
thus :  Moreouer  &c.).  For  of  trouthe  not  the  pacifier  but  myselfe  was 
ouersene  in  that  place  wyth  a  litle  hast  in  misse  remebring  one  worde 
of  his.  For  whereas  he  sayth  in  the  parson  of  Byzance,  in  the  third 
lefe  of  Salem  and  Bizance  :  '  I  wil  cause  it  to  be  writen  into  this 
dyaloge  worde  for  worde  as  it  is  come  to  my  handes  : '  I  forgate  wha  I 
answered  it  that  he  said,  *  as  it  is  come,'  and  toke  it  as  though  he 
sayde  '  as  it  commeth  to  myne  handes.' 

And  therfore  albeit  that  I  haue  knowen  many  that  haue  red  it,  of  which 
I  neuer  found  any  that  found  it,  yet  sythe  it  happed  me  lately  to  looke 
theron,  and  find  mine  ouersight  my  self,  I  wold  in  no  wise  leue  it, 
good  reder,  vnreformed.  Nor  neuer  purpose  while  I  liue,  Avhersoeuer  I 
may  perceiue,  either  mine  aduersary  to  saye  well,  or  my  selfe  to  haue 
saide  otherwyse,  to  let  for  vs  both  indifierently  to  declare  and  saye 
the  truth. 

And  surely  if  they  wold  vse  yeself  same  honeste  plaine  truthe 
towarde  me,  you  shold  sone  see,  good  reders,  all  our  contecions  ended. 
For  than  shold  you  se,  that  like  as  I  haue  not  letted  after  mine  apologye 
to  declare  y*  Tindale  hadde  somewhat  amended  and  ass  waged  in  one 
point  his  formar  euill  assercions  concerning  satisfaccion,  so  shoulde  he 
confesse  the  trouth  that  I  had  truely  touched  him,  and  that  hymselfe 
had  sore  erred,  as  well  in  the  remenat  therof,  as  in  all  his  other 
heresies.  And  than  also,  like  as  I  let  not  here,  for  the  pacifiers  part,  to 
declare  myself  ouersene  with  hast  in  this  one  poit,  so  should  he  not 


Lect.  XI.  WILLIAM   TYNDALE  505 

let  well  and  honestly  to  say  the  trouth  on  the  tother  side,  and  cofesse 
himself  very  far  ouersene  w*  log  leisure,  in  al  the  remenant  besyde. 
I  saye  not  in  all  that  he  saith,  but  in  all  that  is  debated  betwene  vs. 

I  wote  wel  y®  best  horse  wer  he  which  wer  so  sure  of  fote,  that 
runne  he  neuer  so  fast  wold  neuer  in  his  life  neither  fall  nor  stuble. 
But  sithe  we  can  fynde  none  so  sure,  that  horse  is  not  much  to  be  mis- 
liked,  which  that  with  courage  and  prycking  forth  in  hast,  happing  for 
all  hys  fowre  fete  sometime  to  catch  a  fall,  getteth  vp  again  lightly  by 
himself  w*oute  touch  of  spurre  or  any  check  of  y®  bridle.  No  nor 
yet  that  horse  to  be  caste  awaye  neither,  that  getteth  vp  agayne  apace 
w*  the  checke  of  them  bothe.  Nowe  lyke  as  with  the  best  kinde  can 
I  not  compare,  so  of  the  third  sorte  at  the  least  wise  will  I  neuer  fayle 
to  be,  that  is  to  wyt,  ryse  and  reforme  my  selfe,  whan  any  manne  shewe 
me  my  faulte.  And  as  nere  as  I  can  wyll  I  serche  them,  and  as  sone  as  I 
spye  them,  before  anye  man  controUe  the,  aryse,  and  as  I  now  do,  mine 
own  selfe  reforme  the.  Which  kynd  is,  you  wotte,  well  nexte  vnto  the 
best.  But  yet  on  the  tother  side,  of  all  myne  aduersaries  coulde  I  neuer 
hitherto  fynde  any  one,  but  whan  he  catcheth  once  a  fall,  as  ech  of  them 
hath  caught  full  manye,  there  lyeth  he  still  tumblyng  and  toltryng  in 
myre,  and  neyther  spurre  nor  brydle  ca  one  ynche  preuayle,  but  as 
though  they  were  not  fallen  in  a  puddle  of  dirte,  but  rubbed  and  layde 
in  litter  vnder  the  manger  at  theyr  ease,  they  whyne  and  they  byte,  and 
they  kick  and  they  spurne  at  him  that  would  help  them  vp.  And  y* 
is  yet  a  fourth  kynde,  the  woorst,  ye  wotte  well,  that  canne  be. 

This  extract  is  a  fair  average  specimen  of  the  modesty,  can- 
dour, charity,  refinement,  and  logic  of  Sir  Thomas  More  in  his 
controversial  writings.  His  Treatise  on  the  Passion,  written 
during  his  last  imprisonment,  and  interrupted  by  his  depriva- 
tion of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  by  order  of  the  king,  is  in  better 
temper,  but  little  superior  in  style  or  ability  to  this  frag- 
ment. His  fame  as  an  English  writer  must  rest  on  the  Life  of 
Eichard  HI.,  if,  indeed,  that  is  his  work,  and  his  claim  to  our 
sympathy  as  a  man  finds  a  better  support  in  his  family  letters 
and  his  last  hours,  than  in  his  voluminous  theological  discus- 
sions, or  in  his  administration  of  his  spiritual  jurisdiction. 

More's  most  conspicuous  antagonist  was  Tyndale,  whose 
translation  of  the  New  Testament,  first  published  in  1526,  has 
exerted  a  more  marked  influence  upon  English  philology  than 


506  THE   REFORMATION  Lect.  XI. 

any  other  native  work  between  the  ages  of  Chaucer  and  of 
Shakespeare.  I  have,  in  the  twenty-eighth  lecture  of  my  first 
series,  and  elsewhere  in  the  same  volume*,  so  fully  discussed 
the  merits  and  importance  of  this  translation  that  I  need  not 
again  enter  upon  it ;  but  I  append  to  this  lecture  the  eighth 
chapter  of  Matthew  from  Tyndale's  translation,  edition  of  1526, 
reprinted  at  And  over,  from  Bagster,  in  1837.  For  further 
illustration,  I  subjoin  the  singular  translation  of  the  same 
chapter,  executed  by  Sir  John  Cheke  about  the  year  1550. 

When  we  consider  the  extensive  circulation  which  the  works 
of  Wycliffe  and  other  reformers  had  for  a  long  period  enjoyed, 
and  the  progress  which  the  dialect  of  theology  had  made,  it 
seems  remarkable  that,  at  the  commencement  of  the  reforma- 
tory movement,  there  should  have  been  found  in  England  so 
few  men  capable  of  maintaining  its  principles  by  argument. 
But  the  brutal  and  malignant  despotism  of  Henry  VIII.  had  so 
effectually  put  down  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry  in  the  earlier 
years  of  his  reign,  that  when  he  himself  thought  it  convenient 
to  throw  off  allegiance  to  the  see  of  Eome,  there  was  a  want  of 
theological  talent  and  learning  in  his  dominions,  which  had  to 
be  supplied  from  Continental  sources.  Hence,  very  many  of 
the  instructors  of  the  English  people  in  the  principles  of  the 
Reformation  were  of  German,  Dutch,  or  Swiss  birth,  and  the 
English  reformers  themselves  had  often  resorted  to  the  Conti- 
nent for  study,  or  for  security  from  persecution.  These  foreign 
teachers  generally  wrote  in  Latin,  and  when  their  .writings 
were  translated,  paraphrased,  or  epitomized  for  the  edification 
of  the  laity,  they  brought  with  them  many  new  words  and 
idioms  —  a  special  phraseology,  in  fact,  suited  to  the  discussion 
of  the  doctrines  they  advanced.  At  that  period  of  universal 
religious  excitement,  the  study  of  theology  was,  to  the  man  of 
liberal  culture,  just  what  the  study  of  political  history  and 
public  economy  is  in  our  day — a  necessary  complement  to  the 

*  See  First  Series,  pp.  113,  171,  383,  625,  627,  and  Illustrations  II.  and  III.  at 
the  end  of  this  lecture. 


Lect.  XL  CLASSICAL   LEARNING  507 

special  learning  required  for  the  exercise  of  his  particular  pro- 
fession, or  the  performance  of  his  general  duties  as  a  member 
of  the  body  politic.  Every  man  of  education,  every  man  who 
read  at  all  in  fact,  read  theological  books,  and  consequently 
there  was,  almost  at  once,  a  very  considerable  accession  of  Latin 
words  to  the  vocabulary  of  English. 

The  study  of  classical  literature  was  in  England  rather  a 
consequence,  than  an  efficient  cause,  of  the  Keformation.  In 
Grermany,  France,  and  Italy,  the  case  had  been  otherwise. 
There,  the  revival  of  Greek,  and  especially  of  Latin  secular 
philology,  preceded  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  diffusion  of 
works  of  religious  controversy.  The  literature  of  Grreece 
enlightened  and  liberalized  the  minds  of  scholars,  and  the 
speech  of  Kome  furnished  a  vehicle,  a  universal  language,  by 
means  of  which  the  works  of  a  free  inquirer  in  one  country 
could  be  circulated  in  another,  without  the  delay  of  translation, 
or  the  Qxpense  of  getting  up  new  editions ;  while,  in  England, 
the  first  step  necessarily  was  to  make  the  treatise  intelligible 
by  an  English  version. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  desire  of  reading  in  their  native 
form  new  works,  which  at  that  time  were  exciting  a  profound 
interest  throughout  the  civilized  world,  and  of  consulting  the 
original  texts  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  of  the  fathers  of  the 
church,  was  one  of  the  principal  incentives  to  the  study  of 
classical  lore,  which  had  hitherto  made  little  progress  in 
England.*  The  versions  of  classic  authors,  printed  by  Caxton, 
were  made  at  second  hand  from  the  French,  with  the  exception 
of  Cicero's  De  Amicitia,  which  was  translated  from  the  original 
by  Tiptoft,  Earl  of  Worcester. 

Even  the  universities  afforded  but  slender  facilities  for  the 
acquisition  of  classical  Latin  and  Greek,  and  the  Greek  pro- 

*  Sir  Thomas  More  quotes  Tyndale  as  making  this  extraordinary  assertion : 
*  Eemember  ye  not  howe  in  our  owne  time,  of  al  that  taught  grammar  in  England 
not  one  understode  ye  latine  tong  ? '  More  denies  that  the  fact  is  apposite  as  an 
ilkistration  for  the  purpose  for  which  Tyndale  had  used  it,  but  so  far  from  dis- 
puting its  truth,  he  impliedly  admits  it    Workes,  p.  723  d. 


508  MODERN   GRAMMARS  Lect.  XL 

fessorship  at  Cambridge  was  not  founded  until  about  1540. 
Hence  the  few  Englishmen  who  desired  to  pursue  such  studies 
were  obliged  to  repair  to  the  Continental  schools  for  that  pur- 
pose. It  is  true  that  the  transfer  of  instruction  from  the 
monasteries  to  public  schools — a  step  absolutely  indispensable 
to  the  progress  of  classic  philology — had  begun  with  the  cen- 
tury. Lilly,  the  famous  grammarian,  who  had  learned  Greek 
in  the  Levant,  became  the  first  master  of  St.  Paul's  School  in 
1500;  and  about  twenty-two  grammar  schools  were  established 
within  as  many  years  after  that  date.  Cardinal  Wolsey  exerted 
his  powerful  influence  in  support  of  a  more  liberal  system  of 
education  than  had  been  pursued  at  the  conventual  seminaries  ; 
but  his  plans  of  improvement  met  most  violent  opposition  from 
the  jealousy  of  the  monastic  orders,  and  from  their  reluctance 
to  surrender  the  monopoly  of  education,  which  had  proved  so 
lucrative  a  source  of  income,  and  at  the  same  time  so  efficient 
a  means  of  securing  political  influence.  Besides  this,  the  new 
schools  had  to  contend  with  the  superstitious  prejudices  of  the 
clergy,  most  of  whom  both  thought  all  heathen  literature  pro- 
fane and  blasphemous,  and  feared  danger  from  the  creeping 
in  of  heresies  in  consequence  of  the  general  diffusion  of  an 
acquaintance  with  the  New  Testament  in  the  Grreek  text. 

For  these  reasons,  classical  literature  long  remained  at  a  low 
ebb,  and  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  exerted  an  appreciable 
influence  upon  the  English  language  much  before  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 

The  first  immediate  result  of  this  study  was  naturally  an 
increased  attention  to  the  grammar  of  the  vernacular,  and  a 
disposition  to  assimilate  its  theory  to  that  of  the  ancient  lan- 
guages. Hitherto,  neither  English,  nor  even  French,  is  known 
to  have  possessed  dictionaries,  grammars,  or  written  rules  or 
philological  helps  of  any  sort.*     There  existed,  indeed,  several 

*  English  was  ordered  to  be  taught  in  the  common  schools  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  in  a  passage  already  referred  to,  Tyndale  and  Sir  Thomas  More  speak 
of  granimar-schools,  the  masters  of  which  were  ignorant  of  Latin.     Here,  then,  is 


Lect.  XL  PALSGRAYe'S   GRAMMAR  509 

Anglo-Latin  glossaries  and  vocabularies,  but  these  seem  to  have 
been  intended  to  facilitate  the  study  of  conventual  Latin  rather 
than  to  serve  to  explain  the  meaning  of  English  words.*  So 
far  as  yet  appears,  the  first  grammatical  treatise  in  the  English 
language  —  the  earliest  evidence  that  any  Englishman  had  ever 
thought  of  subjecting  any  modern  tongue  to  the  discipline  of 
philological  principle  and  precept  —  is  Palsgrave's  remarkable 
French  grammar,  composed  for  the  use  of  the  Princess  Mary, 
and  printed  in  1530.  This  presents  a  very  full  and  complete 
view  of  French  accidence,  syntax,  and  idiomatic  structure,  with 
a  copious  vocabulary.  As  it  is  written  in  English  and  constantly 
illustrates  French  grammar  by  comparison  with  English,  it  is  of 
high  value  as  a  source  of  information  upon  the  authorized  forms 


a  period  of  a  century  and  a  half,  during  whicli  English  was  scholastically  taught. 
How  was  this  practicable  without  accidences  or  grammatical  manuals  of  some 
kind  ?  Of  all  literary  products,  children's  school-books  are  the  most  perishable. 
Spelling-books  fifty  years  old  are  as  rare  as  Caxtons,  and  the  present  existence  of 
a  real  korn-hodk  is  as  questionable  as  that  of  the  unicorn.  An  English  grammar, 
of  Chaucer's  time,  or  Pecock's,  or  even  of  Tyndale's  bo3'hood,  would  be  a  trouvaille, 
that  would  well  repay  a  half-year's  search  among  mouldering  manuscripts. 

*  The  author  of  the  compilation  called  Promptorius  or  Promptorium  Parvu- 
lorum,  Way's  very  valuable  edition  of  which  is  one  of  the  most  important 
contributions  ever  made  to  English  historical  etymology,  expressly  states  that  he 
prepared  the  work  for  the  use  of  young  ecclesiastics,  'qui  nunc  ad  usum 
clericalis  loquele  velut  cervi  ad  fontes  aquarum  desiderant  sed  Latina  vocabula 
ignorantes,'  etc. 

It  is  an  observation  of  some  interest  with  respect  to  the  permanence  of  local 
dialects,  which  many  modern  linguists  so  strongly  insist  upon,  that  the  author 
declares:  'comitatus  tamen  Northfolchie  modum  loquendi  solum  sum  secutus, 
quem  solum  ab  infancia  didici,  et  solotenus  plenius  perfectiusque  cognovi,'  and 
again,  at  the  close  of  the  preface :  '  Explicit  preambulum  in  libellum  predictum, 
secundum  vulgarem  modum  loquendi  orientalium  Anglorum.'  This  preface  is 
dated  in  1440.  Forby's  vocabulary  of  East-Anglia  gives  us  the  peculiarities  of 
the  colloquial  dialect  of  the  same  counties  in  1830.  There  are,  it  is  true,  some 
coincidences  between  the  two  word-lists,  but  he  must  be  a  philologcr  of  easy 
faith,  who  can  find  in  the  comparison  of  them  satisfactory  evidence  that  the 
special  dialect  of  the  Orientales  Angli  of  1440  was  identical  with  that  of  the 
East-Anglians  of  1830.  It  must  however  be  admitted,  for  the  comfort  of  be- 
lievers in  the  immutability  of  vulgar  speech,  that  the  Chronicle  of  Capgrave,  a 
Norfolk  man  who  flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  presents 
many  more  points  of  resemblance  with  the  modern  dialect  of  that  county  than 
axe  to  be  found  in  the  Promptorium. 


510  CLASSICAL   LEAENIiNO  Lect.  XF. 

of  our  own  language  at  that  period ;  and,  though  intended  solely 
for  instruction  in  a  foreign  tongue,  the  study  of  it  could  not 
have  failed  to  throw  much  light  on  the  general  principles  of 
English  syntax,  and  thus  to  contribute,  in  an  important  degree, 
to  the  improvement  of  English  philology.  Palsgrave's  views  of 
the  logical  and  syntactical  structure  of  language  were  taken 
from  one  of  the  Grreek  grammars  then  in  vogue.  He  accordingly 
applied  the  doctrines  of  ancient  grammar  to  his  exposition  of 
the  theory  of  the  French,  and  indirectly  of  the  English,  and 
his  work  did  much  to  introduce  the  grammatical  nomenclature 
of  the  Latin  into  English,  and  to  establish  philological  opinions 
more  in  harmony  with  the  structure  of  ancient  inflected,  than  of 
modern  indeclinable,  languages.* 

The  inducements  which  the  writings  of  German  and  Swiss 
and  Dutch  Reformers  suggested  for  acquiring  a  knowledge  of 
Hebrew  and  Greek  and  classical  Latin,  gave  a  great  impulse  to 
the  stud}'-  of  the  humanities,  as  they  were  called.  Ancient 
authors  were  made  comparatively  familiar,  by  translations  whose 
vocabulary  and  style  were  marked  by  Latinisms ;  and  the  diction 
of  English  writers,  who  were  able  to  read  those  authors  in  the 
original,  was,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  enriched  by  borrowed 
phrases  and  single  terms,  needed  to  express  the  new  ideas  and 
new  sentiments  that  were  pouring  in  from  so  many  sources. 
Thus  the  profane  literature  of  Greece  and  Eome  contributed, 
both  directly  and  indirectly,  to  enlarge  the  stock  of  English 

*  The  most  remarkable  peculiarity  of  Palsgrave's  English  is,  that  where  an  ad- 
jective belonging  to  the  technical  nomenclature  of  grammar  follows  its  noun,  he 
commonly  makes  its  plural  in  5 ;  thus  :  verbes  acty ves  parsonalles,  verbes  depo- 
nentes  or  comens,  pronounes  interrogative^,  &c.  &c.  We  have  still  current  in 
English  a  few  examples  of  adjectives  inflected  for  the  plural,  but  they  are  cases 
where  the  noun  has  been  so  long  dropped  from  the  phrase,  that  it  has  been  for- 
gotten. Thus,  in  'Know  all  men  by  these  presents,'  presents  is  an  adjective, 
agreeing  with  letters  understood ;  per  has  litteras  'presentes.  Frcmiscs,  in  deeds  of 
conveyance,  is  also  an  adjective,  its  noun  being  understood. 

Palsgrave  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  writer  who  used  &  figured  pronuncia- 
tion, which  he  employs  both  to  convey  the  sounds  of  the  letters,  and  to  show  how 
the  liaisons  are  made.     Thus  he  writes : 

Eegnans  par  droit,  heureux  et  glorieux, 
Kenavupardroatevrevzcglorievz. 


Lect.  XI,  SKELTON  511 

words,  and  the  vocabulary   grew  with   constantly  increasing 
rapidity. 

It  is  fortunate  that  Tyndale's  translation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, first  published  in  1526,  was  executed  before  the  traditional 
sacred  dialect,  handed  down  from  the  time  of  Wycliffe,  was  yet 
much  affected  by  this  flood  of  Latinisms,  which,  a  few  years 
later,  produced  so  marked  a  change  in  the  English  language. 
The  Ehemish  version  shows  us  something  of  what  we  should 
have  had  in  the  place  of  our  present  translation,  had  Tyndale's 
work  been  postponed  a  short  time  longer.  An  English  trans- 
lator of  the  nex:t  generation  would  not  have  thought  of  studying 
Wycliffe,  but  would  have  taken  the  current  English  of  his  time 
as  the  standard  of  style,  and  given  us  a  text  perhaps  a  little 
more  accurate  than  that  of  Tyndale,  but  altogether  inferior  in 
force,  beauty,  and  purity  of  expression. 

But  let  u^  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  poetic  literature  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.  It  is  little  to  the  credit  of  modern  taste 
and  refinement,  that  so  gross  and  repulsive  an  author  as  Skelton 
should  be  better  known  to  students  of  old  English  literature, 
than  the  graceful  and  elegant  Surrey  and  Wyatt.  Puttenham 
well  characterizes  Skelton  as  a  'rude  rayling  rimer,'  and  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  of  him,  that  while  he  has  all  the  coarseness 
of  Swift,  he  does  not  atone  for  it  by  a  spark  of  the  genius  of 
Chaucer.  Most  of  Skelton's  works  appeared  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII.,  but  he  seems  to  have  had  a  reputation  for 
learning  in  his  earlier  youth ;  for  Caxton,  in  the  preface  to  an 
edition  of  the  ^neid  which  he  had  himself  translated  from  a 
French  version,  speaks  of  Skelton  as  one  *  knowne  for  suffyc3^ent 
to  expoune  and  Englysshe  every  dyffyculte  that  is  therein;'  and 
at  a  later  day,  when  he  was  tutor  to  Prince  Henry,  afterwards 
King  Henry  VIII.,  he  was  complimented  by  Erasmus  as  '  Britan- 
nicarum  literarum  decus  et  lumen.'  It  is  more  to  his  classical 
scholarship  than  to  his  poetical  works  that  he  owed  his  original 
literary  reputation,  and  though  his  translations  of  some  ancient 
authors,  which  are  still  preserved  in  manuscript,  would  be  a 
valuable   contribution  to   English  philology,  the  loss   of  his 


512  STEPHEN   HAWES  Lect.  XL 

rhymes  would  be  but  a  trifling  injury  to  English  literature. 
His  learning  certainly  did  little  for  the  improvement  of  his 
English  style,  and  we  may  say  of  his  diction  in  general,  that  all 
that  is  not  vulgar  is  pedantic. 

Stephen  Hawes,  who  flourished  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  VII. 
and  Henry  VIII.,  was  the  author  of  the  Passetyme  of  Pleasure 
and  of  several  other  poems,  all  popular  in  his  time  and  all  now 
deservedly  forgotten.  Warton  thinks  that  he  'added  new 
graces  to  Lydgate's  manner,'  but  these  graces  I  am  unable  to 
discover,  and  I  agree  with  Wright  in  the  opinion,  that  in  all 
respects  his  works  are  '  monuments  of  the  bad  taste  of  a  bad 
age.'  They  have,  however,  a  certain  philological  interest,  both 
on  account  of  their  versification,  which,  though  far  from  melli- 
fluous, presents  some  improvements,  and  especially  as  showing 
the  rapidity  with  which  French  and  Latin  words  were  now 
flowing  into  the  language,  and  as  illustrating  that^  connection 
between  rhymed  verse  and  a  Romance  vocabulary,  of  which  I 
have  so  often  spoken.  The  fifth  chapter  of  his  dull  allegory, 
the  Passetyme  of  Pleasure,  is  entitled,  'How  Science  sent  him 
fyrst  to  Gramer,  where  he  was  received  by  Dame  Congruyte,' 

and  is  as  follows : — 

1. 

The  lady  Gramer  in  all  humbly  wyse, 

Dyd  me  receyve  into  her  goodly  scoole ; 

To  whose  doctrine  I  dyd  me  advertise 

For  to  attayne,  in  her  artyke  poole, 

Her  gyfted  dewe,  for  to  oppresse  my  doole ; 

To  whom  I  sayde  that  I  wold  gladly  lerne 

Her  noble  connynge,  so  that  I  myght  descerne 

2. 

What  that  it  is,  and  why  that  it  was  made  ? 

To  whych  she  answered  than,  in  speciall, 

By  cause  that  connynge  shoulde  not  pale  ne/ade, 

Of  every  scyence  it  is  originall, 

Whych  doth  us  tech  ever  in  generall 

In  all  good  ordre  to  spoke  directly. 

And  for  to  wryte  by  true  ortografy. 


Lect.  XL  STEPHEN    HAWEjJ  513 

3. 

Somtyme  in  Egypt  reygned  a  noble  kyng, 
Iclyped  Evander,  whych  dyd  well  abounde 
In  many  vertues,  especially  in  lernyng ; 
Whych  had  a  doughter,  that  by  her  study  found 
To  wryte  true  Latyn  the  fyrst  parfyt  ground. 
Whose  goodly  name,  as  her  story  sayes, 
Was  called  Carmentis  in  her  livyng  dayes. 

4. 
Thus  in  the  tyme  of  olde  antiquytie, 
The  noble  phylosophers,  wyth  theyr  whole  delyghte, 
For  the  comon  proufFyte  of  all  humanite. 
Of  the  seven  sciences  for  to  knowe  the  ryght, 
They  studied  many  a  long  wynters  nyght, 
Eche  after  otlier  theyr  partes  to  expresse, 
Thys  was  theyr  guyse  to  eschewe  ydelnesse. 

5. 
Thq  pomped  carkes  wyth  foode  dilicious 
They  dyd  not  feed,  but  to  theyr  sustinaunce ; 
They  folowed  not  theyre  fleshe  so  vycious, 
But  ruled  it  by  prudent  governaunce  ; 
They  were  content  alway  wyth  suffisaunce, 
They  coveyted  not  no  worldly  treasure. 
For  they  knewe  that  it  myght  not  endure. 

6. 
But  nowe  a  dayes  the  contrary  is  used : 
To  Wynne  the  mony  theyr  studyes  be  all  set. 
The  commen  profyt  is  often  refused, 
For  well  is  he  that  may  the  money  get 
From  his  neyghbour  wythout  any  let. 
They  thynke  nothynge  they  shall  from  it  pas, 
Whan  all  that  is  shall  be  tourned  to  was. 

7. 
The  bryttel  fleshe,  nourisher  of  vyces, 
Under  the  shadowe  of  evyll  slogardy. 
Must  need  haunte  the  carnall  delices ; 
Whan  that  the  brayne,  by  corrupt  glotony, 
Up  so  downe  is  tourned  than  contrary. 
Frayle  is  the  bodye  to  grete  unhappynea, 
Whan  that  the  head  is  full  of  dronkennes. 
L  L 


514 


STEPHEN   HAWES 


Lect.  XL 


8. 
So  doo  they  now ;  for  they  nothyng  prepence 
Howe  cruell  deth  doth  them  sore  ensue. 
They  are  so  blynded  in  worldly  necligence, 
That  to  theyr  merite  they  wyll  nothyng  renews 
The  seven  scyences,  theyr  slouth  to  eschewe ; 
To  an  others  profyt  they  take  now  no  keepe, 
But  to  theyr  owne,  for  to  eate,  drynke,  and  sleepe. 


And  all  thys  dame  Gramer  told  me  every  dele, 
To  whom  I  herkened  wyth  all  my  diligence ; 
And  after  thys  she  taught  me  ryght  well 
Fyrst  my  Donet  and  then  my  accidence. 
I  set  my  mynde  wyth  percying  influence 
To  lerne  her  scyence,  the  fyrst  famous  arte, 
Eschewyng  ydlenes  and  layeng  all  aparte. 

10. 
Madame,  quod  I,  for  as  much  as  there  be 
Eight  partes  of  speche,  I  would  knowe  ryght  fayne, 
What  a  noune  substantive  is  in  hys  degre. 
And  wherefore  it  is  so  called  certayne  ? 
To  whom  she  answered  ryght  gentely  agayne, 
Sayeng  alway  that  a  noune  substantyve 
Might  stand  wythout  helpe  of  an  adjectyve. 

11. 

The  Latyn  worde  whyche  that  is  referred 

Unto  a  thynge  whych  is  substancyall. 

For  a  noune  substantyve  is  wel  averred,      « 

And  wyth  a  gender  is  declynall ; 

So  all  the  eyght  partes  in  generall 

Are  Laten  wordes,  annexed  properly 

To  every  speche,  for  to  speke  formally. 

12. 

And  gramer  is  the  fyrst  foundement 
Of  every  science  to  have  construccyon  : 
Wlio  knewe  gramer  wythout  impediment 
Shoulde  perfytely  have  intelleccion 
Of  a  lytterall  cense  and  moralyzacion. 
To  construe  every  thynge  ententifly. 
The  worde  is  gramer  wel  and  ordinatly. 


Lect.  XI,  SURREY  AND   WYATT  515 

13. 

By  worde  the  world  was  made  orygynally, 

The  hye  Kynge  sayde,  it  was  made  incontinent ; 

He  dyd  commaunde,  al  was  made  shortly. 

To  the  world  the  worde  is  sentencious  judgemente. 

I  marked  well  dame  Gramers  sentement, 

And  of  her  than  I  dyd  take  my  lycence, 

Goynge  to  Logyke  wyth  all  my  dylygence. 

In  these  thirteen  stanzas  are  ninety-one  lines,  of  which  sixty- 
six  end  in  rhyming  words  of  Latin  or  French  origin,  and  in 
stanzas  fifth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth,  not  a  single  rhyme  is  of 
Anglo-Saxon  derivation. 

The  poems  of  Surrey  and  of  Wyatt,  who  flourished  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  are  in  a  very  different 
strain,  both  of  thought  and  of  language.  They  are  of  import- 
ance in  the  history  of  English,  from  the  great  advance  they  show 
upon  the  diction  of  other  versifiers  of  the  period ;  and  in  the 
history  of  literature,  as  proving  that  Italian  poetr}''  was  now  be- 
ginning to  assume  somewhat  the  same  influence  upon  English 
verse  which  French  had  exercised  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before.  There  was,  however,  this  difference.  The  French 
poets  not  only  banished  the  native  rhythms  and  dictated  the 
forms  of  English  poetry,  but  they  contributed  very  essentially 
to  the  creation  of  a  new  poetic  diction,  by  introducing  new 
words  and  grammatical  idioms,  while  the  Italian  poets,  though 
supplying  models  of  poetic  composition  and  suggesting  new 
metres  and  metrical  combinations,  added  little  or  nothing  to 
the  vocabulary,  and  did  not  at  all  influence  the  syntax  of 
English. 

Surrey — in  imitation  of  the  Italian  poets  who  were  striving 
to  discard  rhyme,  as  a  barbarous  corruption  of  the  dignity  of 
verse,  and  to  restore  the  classic  metres,  or  at  least  a  system  of 
versification  founded  exclusively  on  prosodical  accent — trans- 
lated two  books  of  Virgil's  JEne'id,  in  blank  verse ;  and  this  is 
said  to  be  the  first  specimen  of  unrhymed  poetry  in  the  English 

L  L    2 


516  BLANK  VEESE  Lect.  XI. 

tongue.  This  Warton  calls  a  *  noble  attempt  to  break  the 
bondage  of  rhyme/  and  Eoger  Ascham  thinks  that  in  the 
experiment  Surrey  was  seeking  *  the  fayrest  and  ryghtest  way.' 
But  the  versification  of  the  translation  is  rugged  and  uneven, 
and,  upon  the  whole,  greatly  inferior,  in  smoothness  of  flow  and 
skill  in  melodious  adaptation  of  words,  to  Surrey's  own  rhymed 
poems.  A  writer  long  accustomed  to  compose  in  rhyme,  but 
who  at  last  sets  himself  free  from  the  restraints  of  consonance, 
is  apt  to  make  a  bad  use  of  his  new  found-liberty,  and  to 
convert  it  into  too  great  prosodical  license.  This  was  the  case 
with  Surrey,  whose  blank  verse  is  very  often  quite  undistinguish- 
able  from  common  prose. 

The  dialect  of  Surrey,  and  of  Wyatt  whose  works  very 
closely  resemble  the  poems  of  Surrey,  is  much  more  modern 
than  that  of  any  preceding  writer,  and  it  is  noticeable  that  we 
find  in  them  a  less  frequent  use  of  forms  now  obsolete  than  in 
even  the  prose  authors  of  the  same  period.  This  is  a  singular 
fact,  for  in  all  literatures  the  diction  of  poetry  inclines  to 
archaism  of  expression ;  and  the  departure  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt 
from  the  usual  rule  is  perhaps  to  be  explained  by  the  circum- 
stance that  they  had  no  English  precedents  in  the  vein  of 
poetry  which  they  chose  to  pursue,  and,  consequently,  no  native 
models  of  a  poetic  diction  consecrated  to  the  utterance  of  the 
sentiments  they  wished  to  express.  They  therefore  adopted  the 
colloquial  dialect  of  their  time,  which  had  discarded  many  in- 
flections and  idioms  still  habitually  retained  in  written  literature 
whether  prose  or  verse ;  whereas,  if  they  had  employed  poetic 
forms  examples  of  which  already  existed  in  English,  they  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  follow  their  diction  also. 

The  poems  of  these  authors  have  exercised  a  more  important 
influence  on  the  poetical  dialect  of  the  English  language  than 
has  been  generally  supposed;  for  their  popularity — which  was 
partly  due  to  their  adoption  of  a  popular  dialect — and  their 
great  merit,  not  only  made  them  authoritative  standards  and 
models,  but  tended  in  a  considerable  degree  to  discourage  the 


Lect.  XI.  BISHOP   LATIMER  517 

study  of  older  authors,  who  now  very  soon  began  to  be  con- 
sidered as  rude  and  barbarous.  Although,  therefore,  Surrey  and 
Wyatt  did  much  to  polish  and  refine  the  language  of  their  art, 
yet  they  on  the  other  hand  deprived  it  of  something  of  its 
force  and  energy,  by  lessening  the  authority,  and  consequently 
occasioning  the  neglect,  of  the  great  master  whom  Spenser, 
half  a  century  later,  was  wise  enough  to  hold  to  be  at  once  the 
fountain  and  the  reservoir  of  the  English  tongue. 

The  sermons  of  Bishop  Latimer,  which  belong  to  this  period, 
are  of  much  interest,  because  they  are  written  in  a  very  familiar 
style,  and  give  us,  perhaps,  a  better  idea  of  the  living  speech  of 
educated  men  at  that  time  than  any  other  existing  literary 
monument.  The  sermons  of  Latimer,  and  other  works  of 
similar  linguistic  character,  serve  well  to  show  a  truth  which 
has  but  lately  begun  to  be  recognized  in  philology:  that  though 
foreign-born  words  and  new  logical  combinations  of  familiar 
words  are  generally  introduced  by  written  literature,  yet  syntac- 
tical and  inflectional  changes  originate  with  the  people,  and  are 
current  in  every-day  speech  some  time  before  they  are  recog- 
nized as  admissible  in  formal  composition.  Latimer's  writings, 
reduced  to  the  modern  orthography,  present  scarcely  more 
difficulty  to  a  reader  of  our  own  time  than  a  newspaper  of  this 
century ;  but  there  are  few  prose  or  poetical  works  of  that  day 
belonging  to  the  higher  walks  of  literature,  which  are  not  much 
more  archaic  in  their  structure  and  vocabulary  than  these  plain- 
spoken  homilies.  The  following  extracts  are  from  the  rare 
volume  of  sermons,  seven  in  number,  preached  by  Latimer 
before  King  Henry  VIII.  and  his  Court,  in  March  and  April, 
1549:  — 

FEOM  SERMON   II. 

I  can  not  go  to  my  boke  for  pore  folkes  come  vnto  me,  desirynge  me 
that  I  wyll  speake  y*  theyr  matters  maye  be  heard.  I  trouble  my  Lord 
of  Canterburye,  &  beynge  at  hys  house  nowe  and  then  I  walke  in  the 
garden  lokyng  in  my  boke,  as  I  canne  do  but  little  good  at  it.  But 
some  thyngp  I  muste  nedes  do  to  satisfye  thys  place. 


518  BISHOP  LATIMER  Lect.  XI. 

I  am  no  soner  in  the  garden  and  haue  red  a  whyle,  but  by  and  by 
commetli  there  some  or  other  knocking  at  the  gate. 

Anone  cometh  my  man  and  sayth :  Syr,  there  is  one  at  the  gate 
woulde  speake  Avyth  you.  When  I  come  there,  then  is  it  some  or  other 
that  desireth  me  that  I  wyll  speake  that  hys  matter  might  be  heard,  & 
that  he  hath  layne  thys  longe  at  great  costes  and  charges,  and  can  not 
once  haue  hys  matter  come  to  the  hearing,  but  amog  all  other,  one 
especially  moued  me  at  thys  time  to  speake. 

Thys  it  is  syr :  A  gentylwoman  came  to  me  and  tolde  me,  that  a 
greate  man  kepeth  certaine  landes  of  hyrs  from  hyr  and  wilbe  hyr 
tenaunte  in  the  spite  of  hyr  tethe.  And  that  in  a  whole  twelue  moneth 
she  coulde  not  gette  but  one  daye  for  the  hearynge  of  hyr  matter,  and 
the  same  daye  when  the  matter  shoulde  be  hearde,  the  greate  manne 
broughte  on  hys  syde  a  greate  syghte  of  Lawyers  for  hys  counsayle, 
the  gentilwoman  had  but  one  ma  of  lawe :  and  the  great  man  shakes 
him  so,  so  that  he  ca  [not]  tell  what  to  do,  so  that  when  the  matter 
came  to  the  poynte,  the  Judge  was  a  meane  to  the  gentylwoman  that 
she  wold  let  the  great  ma  haue  a  quietnes  in  hyr  Lande.  I  beseche 
your  grace  that  ye  wyll  loke  to  these  matters. 

FROM    SERMON    III. 

Ther  is  a  certen  ma  that  shortely  after  my  fyrst  sermon,  beyng  asked 
if  he  had  byn  at  y®  sermon  that  day,  answerd,  yea  :  I  praye  you  sayd 
he  how  lyked  you  him  ?  marye,  sayd  he,  eue  as  I  lyked  hym  alwayes,  a 
sedicious  felow.  Oh  Lord  he  pinched  me  there  in  dede,  nay  he  had 
rather  a  ful  byt  at  me.  Yet  I  comfort  myselfe  with  that,  y*  Christ  hi 
selfe  Avas  noted  to  be  a  sturrer  vp  of  the  people  agaist  the  Emperoure, 
and  was  contented  to  be  called  sedyciouse. 

It  becommeth  me  to  take  it  in  good  worthe,  I  am  not  better  then  he 
was.  In  the  kynges  dales  y*  dead  is,  a  meanye  of  vs  were  called 
together  before  him  to  saye  our  myndes  in  certaine  matters.  In  the 
ende  one  kneleth  me  downe,  &  accuseth  me  of  sedycion,  that  I  had 
preched  sedyciouse  doctryne.  A  heuy  salutation,  and  a  hard  poit  of 
such  a  mans  doynge,  as  if  I  should  name  hym,  ye  woulde  not  thynke 
it.  The  kynge  turned  to  me  and  saied :  What  sale  you  to  that,  syr  ? 
Then  I  kneled  downe,  and  turned  me  first  to  myne  accuser,  and 
required  hym : 

Syr,  what  fourme  of  preachTge  would  you  appoynt  me  to  preache 
before  a  kynge  ? 

Woulde  you  haue  me  for  to  preache  nothynge  as  concerninge  a  Kynge 
in  the  Kynges  sermo.  Haue  you  any  commissyon  to  apoynt  me  what  I 
shal  preache  ?     Besydes  thys  I  asked  hym  dyuers  othere  questyons,  and 


Lect.  XI.  BISHOP   LATIMEE  519 

he  would  make  no  answer  to  none  of  them  all.  He  had  nothynge  to 
saye.  Then  I  turned  me  to  the  kynge,  and  submitted  my  selfe  to  hys 
grace  and  sayd  :  I  neuer  thoughte  my  selfe  worthy,  nor  I  neuer  sued  to 
be  a  preacher  before  youre  grace,  but  I  was  called  to  it,  and  woulde  be 
wylling  yf  you  mislyke  me,  to  geue  place  to  my  betters.  For  I  graut 
ther  be  a  gret  meany  more  worthie  of  the  rome  then  I  am.  And  if  be 
so  you're  graces  pleasure  to  allowe  theym  for  preachers,  I  coulde  be 
content  to  bere  theyr  bokes  after  them.  But  if  youre  grace  allowe  me 
for  a  preacher,  I  would  desyer  your  grace  to  geue  me  leue  to  dischardge 
my  cociece.  Geue  me  leue  to  frame  my  doctrine  accordenge  to  mine 
audyece.  I  had  byn  a  veri  dolte  to  haue  preached  so  at  the  borders  of 
your  realme  as  I  prech  before  your  grace. 

FROM   THE   SAME. 

Wo  worthe  these  giftes,  they  subuert  iustyce  euerye  where.  Sequuntur 
retrihutiones.  Some  what  was  geue  to  the  before,  &  they  must  nodes 
gyue  somewhat  again,  for  gyfFegafe  was  a  good  felowe,  this  gyiFegaffe 
led  the  clen  fro  iustice.  They  folow  giftes.  A  good  felowe  on  a  time 
had  an  other  of  hys  frends  to  a  breake  faste,  and  sayed :  Yf  you  wyll 
come  you  shall  be  welcome,  but  I  tell  you  afore  hande,  you  shall  haue 
but  sclender  fare,  one  dish  and  that  is  all.  What  is  that,  saide  he.  A 
puddyne,  and  nothynge  els.  Mary,  sayde  he,  you  ca  not  please  me 
better,  of  all  mettes,  that  is  for  myne  owne  toth.  You  may  draw  me 
round  about  the  towne  with  a  puddyng. 

These  brybinge  magistrates  and  iudges  folow  gyftes  faster  the  the 
fellowe  would  foUowe  the  puddynge. 

I  am  content  to  beare  the  title  of  sedition  w*  Esai.  Thankes  be  to 
God,  I  am  not  alone,  I  am  in  no  singularitie.  Thys  same  man  that 
layed  sedition  thus  to  my  charge  was  asked  an  other  tyme,  whether  he 
were  at  the  sermon  at  Paules  crosse  ;  he  answered  y*  he  was  there,  and 
beynge  asked  what  newes  there.  Marye  quod  he,  wonderfull  newes, 
wee  were  ther  cleane  absolued,  my*  mule  and  all  hadde  fuU  absolution. 
Ye  may  se  by  thys,  that  he  was  such  a  one  that  rode  on  a  mule,  and 
that  he  was  a  gentylma. 

In  dede  hys  mule  was  wyser  then  he,  for  I  dare  say,  the  mule  neuer 
sclaundered  the  preacher.  Oh  what  an  vnhappy  chaunce  had  thys 
Mule  to  carrye  such  an  Asse  vppon  hys  backe !  I  was  there  at  the 
sermon  my  selfe.  In  the  end  of  his  sermon  he  gaue  a  generall  abso- 
lution, and  as  farre  as  I  remember,  these,  or  such  other  lyke  were  hys 
wordes,  but  at  the  least  I  am  sure,  thys  was  hys  meanynge.  As 
manye  as  do  knowledge  your  selfes  to  be  synners,  and  confesse  the 
same  and  standes    not    in   defece   of   it,   and  hertely  abhorreth  it, 


520  BISHOP   LATIMER  Lect.  XI. 

and  wyl  beleve  in  y®  death  of  Christ,  and  be  conformable  therunto,  Ego 
absoluo  vos,  quod  he.  Now,  saith  thys  getylman,  hys  mule  was 
absolued.  The  preacher  absolued  but  such  as  were  sory  and  dyd 
repente.  Bilyke  then  she  dyd  repente  hyr  stumblynge,  hys  Asse  was 
^vyser  then  he  a  greate  deale.  I  speake  not  of  worldely  wysedome,  for 
therin  he  is  to  wyse,  yea,  so  wyse,  that  wyse  men  maruayle  howe 
he  came  trulye  by  the  tenth  part  of  that  he  hathe.  But  in  wisdome 
which  consisteth  in  rebus  Dei,  in  rebus  Salutis,  in  godlye  matters,  & 
pertayning  to  our  saluacyo,  in  this  wisedome  he  is  as  blynde  as  a  bittel. 
Thei  be  Tanquam  equus  et  mulus  in  quibus  non  est  intellectus ;  Lyke 
horses  and  mules  that  haue  no  understandynge. 

If  it  were  true  that  the  mule  repented  hyr  of  hyr  stumblyng  I 
thynke  shee  was  better  absolued  then  he.  I  pray  God  stop  his  mouthe, 
or  els  to  open  it  to  speake  better,  and  more  to  hys  glory.  An  other 
man  quickned  with  a  word  I  spoke  (as  he  saied  opprobriously  agaynste 
the  nobility  that  theyr  childre  dyd  not  set  forthe  Gods  worde,  but  were 
vnpreachynge  prelates)  was  offended  wyth  me. 

FROM   SERMON   VI. 

The  arte  of  shutynge  hath  ben  in  tymes  past  much  estemed  in  this 
realme,  it  is  a  gyft  of  God  that  he  hath  geuen  vs  to  excell  all  other 
nacions  wythall.  It  hath  bene  Goddes  instrumente,  whereby  he  hath 
gyue  vs  manye  victories  agaynste  oure  enemyes.  But  nowe  we  haue 
taken  vp  horynge  in  tounes,  in  steede  of  shutyng  in  the  fyeldes.  A 
wonderous  thynge,  that  so  excellente  a  gift  of  God  shoulde  be  so  lytle 
estemed.  I  desyer  you  my  Lordes,  even  as  y^  loue  the  honoure,  and 
glory  of  God,  and  entende  to  remove  his  indignacion,  let  ther  be  sente 
fourth  some  proclimacion,  some  sharpe  proclimacion,  to  the  iustices  of 
peace,  for  they  do  not  their  dutye.  Justices  now  be  no  iustices,  ther  be 
manye  good  actes  made  for  thys  matter  already.  Charge  them  vp5  theyr 
allegiauKce  y*  this  singular  benefit  of  God  maye  be  practised,  and  that 
it  be  not  turned  into  bollyng,  glossyng,  and  whoryng  wythin  the  townes, 
for  they  be  negligente  in  executyng  these  lawes  of  shutyng. 

In  my  tyme  my  poore  father  was  as  diligent  to  teach  me  to  shote  as 
to  learne  anye  other  thynge,  and  so  I  thynke  other  menne  dyd  theyr 
children.  He  taught  me  how  to  drawe,  how  to  laye  my  bodye  in  my 
bowe,  and  not  to  drawe  wyth  stregth  of  armes,  as  other  nacions  do, 
but  with  strength  of  the  bodye.  I  had  my  bowes  boughte  me  ac- 
cordyng  to  my  age  &  stregth ;  as  I  encreased  in  them,  so  my  bowes 
were  made  bigger  and  bigger,  for  men  shal  neuer  shot  well,  excepte 
they  be  broughte  vp  in  it.     It  is  a  goodly  art,  a  holaome  kynde  of 


Lect.  XI.  SIR   JOHN    CHEKE  521 

•exercise,  much  commended  in  pliisike.  Marsilius  Ficinus,  in  hys 
boke  de  triplici  vita  (it  is  a  greate  while  sins  I  red  hym  nowe),  but  I 
remebre  he  commendeth  this  kinde  of  exercise,  and  sayth  that  it 
wrestleth  agaynste  manye  kyndes  of  diseases.  In  the  reuerece  of  God, 
let  it  be  continued. 

Sir  John  Cheke,  Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  is  perhaps  the  first  Englishman  in  whose  prose  style 
the  influence  of  a  familiarity  with  classical  literature  is  fully 
and  clearly  manifested.  I  mean  the  legitimate  and  proper 
influence,  which  is,  not  the  crowding  of  our  diction  with  Latin 
words  and  idioms,  not  an  affluence  of  quotation  or  of  remi- 
niscence of  ancient  history  and  fable,  but  grammatical  accuracy 
in  syntax  and  inflection,  strict  attention  to  the  proper  use  of 
words  singly  considered,  and  idiomatic  purity  in  the  construc- 
tion of  phrases  and  the  arrangement  of  periods.  In  vocabulary, 
Cheke  was  a  purist  by  principle  ;  for  in  his  almost  only  known 
original  composition,  the  Hurt  of  Sedition,  he  employs  none  but 
words  which  had  been  for  centuries  familiar  to  every  intelligent 
Englishman.  In  his  specimen  of  a  translation  of  the  New 
Testament,  of  which  only  a  few  chapters  are  extant — if,  indeed, 
more  ever  existed  —  he  carries  his  purism  still  farther,  and 
introduces  many  Anglo-Saxon  compounds,  of  his  own  coinage, 
in  place  of  the  technical  words  belonging  to  Christian  doctrine 
which  older  translators  had  transferred,  without  change,  from 
the  Grreek  and  Latin  texts  to  their  own  versions.* 

Cheke  was  no  advocate  of  popular  rights,  but  the  following 
paragraphs  from  his  Hurt  of  Sedition  may  even  now  be  read 
with  profit  by  those  whom  they  concern.     I  take  them  from 

*  See  Cheke' s  translation  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  Matthew's  gospel,  in 
Longer  Notes  and  Illustrations,  III.,  at  the  end  of  this  lecture. 

Among  the  new  words  fabricated  by  Cheke  for  his  translation  are :  biwordcs, 
parables,  examples;  crossed,  crucified;  dcbitee  (deputy)  of  ye  fourth  part, 
tetrarch ;  forsaiers  and  forschewers,  prophets ;  froscnt,  sent  out,  and  frosender, 
he  who  sends  out ;  freschman,  proselyte ;  gainbirth,  regeneration ;  groundwrought^ 
founded ;  himdcrdcr,  centurion ;  moond  (mooned),  lunatic ;  onwriting,  super- 
scription ;  outpcopling,  carrying  into  captivity ;  outborn,  alien ;  outcalkd,  elect ; 
soulisch  (animal),  the  natural  man ;  trutorn  (true  turn),  true  translation. 


522  SIR  JOHN   CHEKE        '  Lect.  XI. 

Holinshed,  reprint  of  1808,  vol.  iii.  pp.  987,  988,  992,  1005, 
1007. 

Among  so  manie  and  notable  benefits,  wherewith  God  hath  alreadie 
and  plentifullie  indued  vs,  there  is  nothing  more  beneficial],  than  that 
we  haue  by  his  grace  kept  vs  quiet  from  rebellion  at  this  time.  For 
we  see  such  miseries  hang  ouer  the  whole  state  of  the  common-wealth, 
through  the  great  misorder  of  your  sedition,  that  it  maketh  vs  much  to 
reioise,  that  we  haue  beene  neither  partners  of  your  doings,  nor  con- 
spirers  of  your  counsels.  For  euen  as  the  Lacedemonians  for  the 
auoiding  of  drunkennesse  did  cause  their  sons  to  behold  their  seruants 
when  they  were  drunke,  that  by  beholding  their  beastlinesse,  they 
might  auoid  the  like  vice :  euen  so  hath  God  like  a  mercifull  father 
staied  vs  from  your  wickednesse,  that  by  beholding  the  filth  of  your 
fault,  we  might  iustlie  for  offense  abhorre  you  like  rebels,  whome  else 
by  nature  we  loue  like  Englishmen.  And  so  for  our  selues,  we  haue 
great  cause  to  thanke  God,  by  whose  religion  and  holie  word  dailie 
taught  vs,  we  learne  not  onelie  to  feare  him  trulie,  but  also  to  obeie 
our  king  faithfullie,  and  to  serue  in  our  owne  vocation  like  subiects 
honestlie.  And  as  for  you,  we  haue  suerlie  iust  cause  to  lament  you 
as  brethren,  and  yet  iuster  cause  to  rise  against  you  as  enimies,  and 
most  iust  to  ouerthrow  you  as  rebels. 

For  what  hurt  could  be  doone  either  to  vs  priuatlie,  or  to  the  whole 
common-wealth  generallie,  that  is  now  with  mischiefe  so  brought  in  by 
you,  that  euen  as  we  see  now  the  flame  of  your  rage,  so  shall  we  neces- 
sarilie  be  consumed  hereafter  with  the  miserie  of  the  same.  Wherefore 
consider  your  selues  with  some  light  of  vnderstanding,  and  marke  this 
greeuous  and  horrible  fault,  which  ye  haue  thus  vilelie  committed, 
howe  heinous  it  must  needs  appeare  to  you,  if  ye  will  reasonablie  con- 
sider that  which  for  my  duties  sake,  and  my  whole  countries  cause,  I 
will  at  this  present  declare  vnto  you.  Ye  which  be  bound  by  Gods 
word  not  to  obeie  for  feare  like  men-pleasers,  but  for  conscience  sake 
like  cristians,  haue  contrarie  to  Gods  holie  will,  whose  offense  is  euer- 
lasting  death,  and  contrarie  to  the  godlie  order  of  quietnesse,  set  out  to 
vs  in  the  kings  maiesties  lawes,  the  breach  whereof  is  not  vnknowne  to 
you,  t  ken  in  hand  vncalled  of  God,  vnsent  by  men,  vnfit  by  reason, 
to  cast  awaie  your  bounden  duties  of  obedience,  and  to  put  on  you 
against  the  magistrats,  Gods  office  committed  to  the  magistrats,  for  the 
reformation  of  your  pretensed  iniuries.  In  the  which  dooing  ye  haue 
first  faulted  grieuouslie  against  God,  next  offended  vnnaturallie  our 
souereigne  lord,  thirdlie  troubled  miserablie  the  whole  common-wealth, 


Lect-  XT.  SIR  JOHN   CHEKB  523 

vndoone  cruellie  manie  an  honest  man,  and  brouglit  in  an  vtter  miserie 
both  to  vs  the  kings  subiects,  and  to  your  seines  being  false  rebels.  And 
yet  ye  pretend  that  partlie  for  Gods  cause,  and  partlie  for  the  common- 
wealths sake,  ye  doo  arise,  when  as  your  selues  cannot  denie ;  but'ye 
that  seeke  in  word  Gods  cause,  doo  breake  indeed  Gods  commande- 
ments ;  and  ye  that  seeke  the  common-wealth,  haue  destroied  the  com- 
mon-wealth :  and  so  ye  marre  that  ye  would  make,  and  brake  that  ye 
would  amend,  because  ye  neither  seeke  anie  thing  rightlie,  nor  would 
amend  anie  thing  orderlie. 

*  *  «  * 

But  what  talke  I  of  disobedience  so  quietlie  ?  Haue  not  such  mad 
rages  run  in  your  heads,  that  forsaking  and  bursting  the  quietnesse  of 
the  common  peace,  ye  haue  heinouslie  and  traitorouslie  incamped  your 
selues  in  field,  and  there  like  a  bile  in  a  bodie,  naie  like  a  sinke  in  a 
towne,  haue  gathered  togither  all  the  nastie  vagabonds  and  idle  loiterers 
to  beare  armour,  &c.  &c. 

*  *     .  »  « 

Desperate  sicknesse  in  physicke  must  haue  desperate  remedies,  for 
meane  medicines  will  neuer  helpe  great  griefes.  So  if  ye  cast  your 
selues  into  such  sharpe  diseases,  ye  must  needs  looke  for  sharpe  medi- 
cines againe  at  your  physicians  hands.  And  worthie  ye  be  to  suffer 
the  extremitie  in  a  commonwealth,  which  seeke  to  doo  the  extremitie, 
and  by  reason  must  receive  the  like  ye  offer,  and  so  be  contented  to 
bide  the  end  willinglie  which  set  on  the  beginning  willfuUie. 

*  *  *  * 

Thus  the  whole  countrie  lacking  the  good  opinion  of  other  nations, 
is  cast  into  great  shame  by  your  vnrulinesse,  and  the  proceedings  of  the 
countrie,  be  they  neuer  so  godlie,  shall  be  ill  spoken  of,  as  vnfit  to  be 
brought  into  vse ;  and  good  things  hereby  that  deserue  praise,  shall 
bide  the  rebuke  of  them  that  list  to  speake  ill,  and  ill  things  vntouched 
shall  be  boldlier  mainteined. 

*  *  ♦  * 

And  with  what  dutie  or  vertue  in  ye,  can  ye  quench  out  of  memorie 
this  foule  enterprise,  or  gather  a  good  report  againe  to  this  realme,  who 
haue  so  vilelie  with  reproch  slandered  the  same,  and  diuerslie  discre- 
dited it  among  others,  and  abated  the  good  opinion  which  was  had  of  the 
iust  gouernement  and  ruled  order  vsed  heretofore  in  this  noble  realme, 
which  is  now  most  grieuous,  bicause  it  is  now  most  without  cause. 

If  this  outward  opinion  (without  further  inconuenience)  were  all,  yet 
it  might  well  be  borne,  and  would  with  ease  decaie  as  it  grewe  :  but  it 
hath  not  onlie  hurt  vs  with  voice,  but  indangered  vs  in  deed,  and  cast 


524  THE   REFOKMATION   AND   CLASSICAL  LEARNING      Lect.  XL 

V8  a  great  deale  behind  the  hand,  whpre  else  we  might  haue  had  a 
iollie  foredeale.  For  that  opportunitie  of  time  which  seldome  chanceth, 
and  is  alwaies  to  bee  taken,  hath  beene  by  your  froward  meanes  lost 
this  yeare,  and  so  vainlie  spent  at  home  for  bringing  downe  of  you, 
which  should  else  profitablie  haue  beene  otherwise  bestowed,  that  it 
hath  beene  almost  as  great  a  losse  to  vs  abrode,  to  lacke  that  we  might 
haue  obteined,  as  it  was  combrance  at  home  to  go  about  the  ouerthrow 
of  you,  whose  sedition  is  to  be  abhorred.  And  we  might  both  con- 
uenientlie  haue  inuaded  some,  if  they  would  not  reasonablie  haue 
growne  to  some  kind  of  friendship,  and  also  defended  others  which 
would  beside  promise  for  times  sake  vniustlie  set  upon  vs,  and  easilie 
haue  made  this  stormie  time  a  faire  yeare  vnto  vs,  if  our  men  had 
beene  so  happie  at  home,  as  our  likelihood  abrode  was  fortunat. 

The  Eeformation,  at  first,  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  study  of 
Latin  as  the  universal  speech  of  science  and.  of  philosophical 
and  religious  discussion,  and  of  Grreek  as  the  language  in  which 
the  New  Testament — if  not  originally  written  in  that  tongue — 
had  at  least  come  down  from  the  primitive  ages  of  Christianity. 
But  the  attention  of  the  learned  was  soon  drawn  from  the 
secular  literature  of  Greece  and  Kome  and  absorbed  in  theo- 
logical and  scholastic  casuistry;  and  finally  a  superstitious 
distrust  of  the  tendency  of  profane  scholarship  succeeded  to  the 
admiration  with  which  the  classical  authors  had  been  so  recently 
regarded.  The  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  under  Henry  VIII. 
broke  up  some  schools,  and  numbers  of  the  Grreek  and  Latin 
manuscripts  preserved  in  the  conventual  libraries  were  de- 
stroyed—  sometimes  in  the  blind  fury  of  a  popular  outbreak, 
and  sometimes  by  the  monks  themselves,  who  preferred  burning 
their  books  to  allowing  them  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  here- 
tics. Hence  the  cause  of  classical  learning  sustained  a  check  in 
England,  and  the  study  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  fairly  re- 
vived until  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  who  was  herself  a  good  Grreek 
and  Latin  scholar. 

This  short  interruption,  so  far  from  proving  injurious  to  the 
improvement  of  the  English  language,  was  rather  a  benefit  to 
it ;  for  it  put  a  temporary  stop  to  the  influx  of  Latin  words, 


Lect.  XI.  MYSTERIES   AND   MORALITIES  525 

which  were  threatening  to  overwhelm  the  Anglo-Saxon  vocabu- 
lary, and  before  the  study  of  Grreek  and  Latin  came  again  into 
vogue,  English  had  gathered  strength  enough  and  received  suffi- 
cient polish  and  culture  to  be  able  to  sustain  itself  as  a  literary 
dialect  against  the  encroachments  of  ancient  or  foreign  philo- 
logies. 

About  the  close  of  the  first  third  of  this  century,  John 
Heywood  introduced  a  new  species,  if  not  a  new  genus  of  lite- 
rature— the  comedy.  The  comedy  is  distinguished  from  the 
Mysteries,  Moralities,  Interludes,  and  other  histrionic  exhibi- 
tions which  had  preceded  it,  by  devoting  itself  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  popular  manners  and  of  scenes  from  familiar  life. 
The  Mysteries  were  properly  theological,  the  Moralities  ethical, 
in  aim,  and  professedly  in  tone.  The  characters  were  either 
taken  from  sacred  history  or  they  were  allegorical  personifica- 
tions of  virtues  and  vices.  To  draw  an  exact  line  between 
them,  or  between  either  of  them  and  later  forms  of  theatrical 
representation,  is  impossible,  because  they  belong  to  uncritical 
ages,  when  authors  themselves  had  no  clear  notions  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  imaginative  literature,  or  of  the  boundaries  by  which 
truth  to  nature  requires  us  to  divide  its  different  branches  ;  and 
what  they  confounded  in  practice,  it  is  idle  for  us  to  attempt  to 
separate  in  theory. 

These  ancient  scenic  entertainments  were  often  intermixed 
with  buffoonery  and  burlesque,  or  with  incidents  and  dialogue 
of  a  graver  character,  sometimes  approximating  closely  to  the 
incidents  and  sentiments  of  real  life.  They  therefore  prepared 
the  way  for  the  reception  and  the  composition  of  both  comedy 
and  tragedy  —  for  the  entire  drama,  in  short  —  and  this  branch 
of  English  literature  is  more  indebted  to  these  rude  essays  for 
its  special  character  than  to  the  influence  of  the  classic  stage. 

I  ought  here  to  notice  certain  important  formal  and  substan- 
tial distinctions  between  the  Enorlish  drama  and  that  of  the 
Continent  in  general,  the  French  especially,  which  latter  shows 
much  more  strongly  the  influence  of  classic  models,  and  of  the 


526  THE  ENGLISH  DRAMA  Lect.  XL 

traditions  belonging  to  the  scenic  representations  of  the  middle 
ao-es.  In  form,  the  English  writers  have  usually  disregarded 
the  unities  of  time  and  place  to  which  the  French  so  strictly 
adhere,  and  in  action  and  tendency,  they  have  a  less  distinctly 
avowed,  though  not  less  real,  moral  and  didactic  character. 

The  comedies  of  Moliere,  for  instance,  are  professedly  designed 
to  satirize,  each  some  one  prevalent  vice  or  folly;  and  every 
play  is  as  conspicuously  marked  and  labelled  as  the  phials  of  an 
apothecary's  shop ;  so  that  the  moral  patient  is  always  informed 
beforehand  what  malady  the  medicine  is  intended  to  cure,  and 
what  drug  he  is  about  to  swallow.  The  moral  of  the  English 
comedy  is  not  thus  ostentatiously  displayed,  nor,  in  the  highest 
examples  of  that  species  of  composition,  is  the  purpose  of  the 
dramatist  limited  to  the  exposure  and  castigation  of  a  single 
weakness  or  a  single  wrong. 

And  herein,  as  in  all  else,  the  Shakespearian  drama  is  in- 
finitely more  true  to  nature  than  all  other  schools.  Providence 
and  nature  indeed  are  great  moral  teachers,  but  their  lessons  are 
neither  ticketed  nor  announced  in  advance ;  nor  are  they  single, 
or  observant  of  the  stage  proprieties  of  time  or  place.  A  man 
is  not  born,  and  bred,  and  trained  up,  and  sent  out  into  the 
world,  with  a  retinue  of  dramatis  personse,  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  show  forth,  by  his  example,  the  excellence  of  virtue,  or, 
by  his  punishment  or  disgrace,  the  evils  of  ambition  and  avarice, 
the  folly  of  pride  or  the  absurdities  of  fashion  and  social  con- 
ventionalism ;  for  even  the  Deity  does  not  employ  persons  solely 
as  means  to  an  end.  We  are  all  here  for  a  multitude  of  pur- 
poses, individual  to  ourselves  or  common  to  our  fellow-men, 
and  none  is  sent  hither  only  as  a  model  or  as  a  warning.  The 
lessons  of  the  world  are  incidental,  not  formal  or  specific ;  and 
that  great  humanity,  from  which  we  are  to  learn  how  to  solve  the 
problems  of  social  life,  is  a  wise  teacher  indeed,  but  no  pedant. 

The  plays  of  Heywood,  to  borrow  the  words  of  Wharton,  '  are 
destitute  of  plot,  humour,  or  character ' —  certainly  very  essential 
ingredients  in  true  comedy.     Hence,  they  are  of  no  intrinsic 


Lect.  XI.  JOHN   HEYWOOD  527 

importance,  and  their  literary  interest  is  only  that  which  attaches 
to  all  distinctly  characterized  first  essays  in  every  branch  of 
composition.  They  are  valuable,  not  as  models,  but  only  as  the 
first  clearly  recognized  specimens  of  their  kind,  and  as  marking 
a  period  of  transition  and  of  a  new  creation  in  dramatic  art. 
They  have,  too,  a  philological  interest  and  value,  but  this  will 
be  more  appropriately  considered  in  connection  with  the  diction 
of  the  later  English  dramatists,  who,  by  a  short  interval,  pre- 
ceded Shakespeare. 

In  any  general  view  of  English  literature,  a  notice  of  the  ballad 
poetry  is  indispensable ;  but  in  a  course  devoted  chiefly  to  the 
philology  of  our  tongue,  this  branch  of  our  poetry  must  occupy 
a  very  subordinate  place,  because  the  diction  of  the  ballads 
does  not  appear  truly  to  represent  either  the  colloquial  language 
of  their  own  periods,  or  the  literary  dialect,  as  exhibited  in  any 
other  form  of  prose  or  poetical  composition.  It  is  therefore  to 
be  regarded  as  a  special  nomenclature  rather  than  as  a  part  of 
the  general  language  of  England.  The  English  ballads  are 
usually  of  moderate  merit,  and  they  seem  to  have  been  com- 
posed by  and  for  persons  of  a  low  grade  of  culture.  There  are 
indeed  many  very  striking  exceptions  to  this  latter  remark,  but 
in  these  cases,  the  dialect  rises  at  once  above  the  level  of  that  of 
the  ordinary  ballad  poetry,  assimilates  itself  to  the  diction  of 
other  poetical  writings,  and  is  hardly  distinguishable  from  them 
in  either  vocabulary  or  inflectiou. 

The  singular  grammatical  forms  of  many  English  ballads 
seem  to  be  mere  ignorant  corruptions,  or  unwarrantable  licenses 
of  inferior  rhymsters,  and  they  can  never  be  cited  as  authorities 
in  philological  discussion.  The  Scottish  ballads  are  in  general 
superior  to  the  English,  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  they 
derive  many  of  their  literary  as  well  as  their  dialectic  peculiari- 
ties from  the  songs  of  the  Scandinavian  bards,  whose  popular 
ballads  are  generally  of  a  higher  rank  than  those  of  the  English 
or  of  any  other  of  the  Northern  nations.  The  Scottish  resemble 
the  Scandinavian  ballads  both  in  form  aaid  in  diction,  and  some 


528  OLD   ENGLISH  BALLADS  Lect.  XI. 

Northern  words  and  forms  occur  in  them,  of  which  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  produce  examples  in  other  branches  of  literature. 

The  individual  peculiarities  of  dialect  which  mark  these  per- 
formances are  too  numerous  to  be  noticed  in  detail,  but  I  may 
observe  in  general,  that  the  conjugations  of  the  verbs  seem  to 
be  almost  arbitrarily  varied,  and  the  writers  often  fail  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  radical  and  the  servile,  or  so  to  speak 
accidental,  parts  of  words. 

Besides  this,  there  is,  as  to  mosb  of  themj  a  total  uncertainty 
with  respect  to  their  local  origin  and  their  date,  and  therefore 
we  can  assign  them  to  no  dialectic  class,  no  definite  period,  in 
the  history  of  the  language.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  beauty, 
the  psychological,  and  even  the  historical  interest  of  many  of 
these  productions,  they  must  be  excluded  from  the  rank  of 
influences  or  of  landmarks  in  our  philological  annals.* 

LONGER  NOTES  AND   ILLUSTEATIONS. 
I. 

SIR  THOMAS   MORE's   LIFE   OF   RICHARD   III. 

As  I  tave  observed  in  my  former  Series  of  Lectures,  Appendix, 
p.  388,  the  coalescent  forms  asaued  and  afled  occur  in  Hardynge's  text 
of  More's  Life  of  Richard  III.,  p.  547,  reprint  of  1812.  The  passage 
is  probably  an  addition  by  Grafton,  as  it  is  not  found  in  RastelJ's 
edition.  It  would  seem  not  likely  that  so  learned  a  man  as  More  would 
have  employed  such  incorrect  expressions ;  but,  nevertheless,  a  case  of 
coalescence  is  found  in  the  edition  of  Rastell  just  referred  to,  and  it  is 
possible  that  it  is  one  of  many  which  the  original  manuscript  contained, 
and  which  the  editor  had  resolved  into  their  elements.  It  is  this : 
*  This  deuise  all  be  it  that  it  made  the  matter  to  wise  men  more  un- 
lykely,  well  perceyuyng  that  the  intendours  of  suche  a  purpose  wolde 

*  I  cannot  dismiss  the  subject  of  ballads  without  drawing  the  attention  of  my 
readers  to  the  admirable  and  very  complete  collection  of  English  and  Scottish 
ballads,  in  eight  volumes,  edited  by  Professor  F.  J.  Child,  of  Harvard  University. 
Great  care  has  been  exercised  in  the  selection  of  the  most  authoritative  texts,  and 
they  are  illu-itrated  with  a  profusion  of  folk-lore,  which,  with  the  ballads,  makes 
the  work  a  true  encyclopaedia  of  popular  song. 


Lect.  XI.  MORE's   life    of   RICHARD  III.  529 

rather  haue  hadde  theyr  barneys  on  theyr  backes  than  taue  bounde 
them  uppe  in  barrelles'  &c. —  Workes  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  p,  45,  E. 

On  pages  52,66  and  67  of  Eastell's  edition,  are  inserted  long  passages, 
which,  according  to  the  marginal  note,  were  *  not  written  by  Master 
More  in  this  history  by  him  writte  in  English,  but  are  translated  out  of 
this  history  which  he  wrote  in  Laten.'  The  orthography  of  these 
passages  is  not  distinguishable  from  that  of  the  rest  of  the  work,  nor 
indeed  would  it  be  easy  to  point  out  any  special  differences,  in  syntax 
or  diction,  between  what  is  declared  to  be  More's  composition,  and 
what  is,  apparently,  Rastell's  translation.  But  between  1513  and  1557 
very  considerable  changes  had  taken  place  in  the  spelling  and  the 
phraseological  combinations  of  English,  and  it  is  hence  fairly  to  be 
inferred  that  the  editor,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  had  con- 
formed the  orthography  and  the  grammar  of  More's  original  manuscript 
to  later  usage. 

Holinshed  incorporated  this  life  into  his  chronicle,  and  in  the  edition 
of  1586  it  is  professedly  printed  'according  to  a  copie  of  his  [More's] 
owne  hande,  printed  among  his  other  Works.'  This  of  course  refers  to 
Eastell's  edition ;  but  the  editor  modernizes  Rastell's  text,  as  Rastell, 
no  doubt,  had  done  with  More's  original.  In  my  former  Series  of 
Lectures,  XXVI.,  p.  584,  I  have  noticed  the  distinction  between  sith 
and  since  as  having  arisen  while  those  between  the  two  affirmative  and 
between  the  two  negative  particles  were  passing  away.  Sir  Thomas 
More,  according  to  'the  edition  of  1557,  generally  employs  sith  as  an 
illative,  since  as  an  adverb  or  preposition  of  time ;  but  the  distinction  is 
so  often  disregarded,  that  it  is  evident  it  had  not  become  fully  established 
in  his  time,  or  in  that  of  his  editor.  Thus  on  p.  50,  H,  in  a  passage 
translated  by  Rastell,  sith,  but,  two  lines  lower,  in  More's  text,  sins,  are 
illatives;  and  sins  is  employed  in  the  same  way,  pp.  64,  H,  136,  H, 
and  elsewhere.  On  the  other  hand,  sith  is  a  time-word,  p.  223,  D, 
1427,  C,  and  in  other  passages.  The  cases  of  the  use  of  sins  as  an 
illative  on  pp.  50  and  64  occur  in  the  Life  of  Richard  III.,  and  in  both 
instances,  the  Holinshed  of  1586,  reprinted  in  1808,  has  sith.  The 
logical  distinction  between  since  and  sith,  as  respectively  expressive  of 
sequence  and  consequence,  had  jiow  become  clearly  recognized,  and 
Holinshed  modernized  his  author  accordingly. 

In  fact,  not  only  is  the  orthography  of  Rastell  very  greatly  changed 
in  Holinshed,  but  rhetoric  and  grammar  are,  in  numerous  instances, 
accommodated  to  the  taste  or  critical  opinions  of  the  later  editor.  Thus, 
in  the  first  paragraph,  Rastell  has :  '  Kyng  Edwarde  of  that  name  the 
fourth ; '  Holinshed  :  *  King  Edward  the  fourth  of  that  name ; '  Rastell : 

M  M 


530  TYNDALE  Lect.  XI. 

*  Edwarde  the  Piynce,  a  thirtene  yeare  of  age ; '  Holinshed  :  *  Edward 
the  prince,  a  thirtdene  yeares  of  age.' 

More's  manuscript  being  no  longer  in  existence,  we  cannot  presume 
to  say  how  far  Rastell  corrected  it ;  but  if  he  did  not  make  very  con- 
siderable alterations,  he  must  have  been,  for  his  time,  the  most  con- 
scientious of  editors.  I  regret  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  institute 
a  comparison  between  Rastell  and  the  original  editions  of  More's  con- 
troversial writings,  as  this  would  furnish  a  means  of  judging  how  nearly 
his  text  of  the  Life  conforms  to  the  manuscript. 

X^ote. — Since  my  manuscript  was  sent  to  press,  I  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  comparing  the  original  edition  of  More's  Apology,  printed  by 
Eastell  in  1533,  with  the  text  given  by  the  same  publisher  in  his 
edition  of  More's  complete  English  works,  printed  in  1557.  As  we 
might  expect  in  the  repetition  of  a  work  by  the  same  press,  the 
differences  between  the  two  texts  are,  in  general,  orthographical 
merely,  such,  for  example,  as  the  spelling,  e2/e,  eijen,  mucJie,  fearde 
in  the  later,  for  the  yie,  ijien,  myche,  f^rd,  of  the  former  edition,  and  I 
have  not  observed  any  instance  of  a  change  in  grammatical  construc- 
tion, or  of  the  substitution  of  a  different  word,  in  the  text  of  1557. 

With  respect  to  sith  and  since,  I  note  that  in  the  Apology  sith  is  used 
as  an  illative  between  fifty  and  sixty  times,  as  a  time-word  twice,  folios 
76  and  110,  edition  of  1533,  while  since  (synnys,  synne,  synnes,) 
occurs,  always  as  a  time-word,  on  folios  77,  84,  106,  148,  199,  202, 
203,  210,  214,  232  and  243. 

II. 

Matthew's  gospel  chapter  viii.  from  tyndale. 

1  When  Jesus  was  come  downe  from  the  mountayne,  moch  people 
folowed  him. 

2  And  lo,  there  cam  a  lepre,  and  worsheped  him  saynge.  Master,  if 
thou  wylt,  thou  canst  make  me  clene. 

3  He  putt  forthe  his  hond  and  touched  him  saynge :  I  will,  be  clene, 
and  immediatly  his  leprosy  was  clensed. 

4  And  Jesus  said  vnto  him.  Se  thou  tell  no  man,  but  go  and  shewe 
thysilf  to  the  preste  and  offer  the  gyfte,  that  Moses  commaunded  to  be 
offred,  in  witnes  to  them. 

5  When  Jesus  was  entred  in  to  Capernaum,  there  cam  vnto  him  a 
certayne  Centurion,  besechyng  him 

6  And  saynge :  IVEaster,  my  servaimt  lyeth  sicke  att  home  off  the 
palsye,  and  is  grevously  payned. 


Lect.  Xr.  TTNDALE  531 

7  And  Jesus  sayd  vnto  him.     I  will  come  and  cure  him. 

8  The  Centurion  answered  and  saide :  Syr  I  am  not  worthy  that 
thou  shuldest  com  vnder  the  rofe  of  my  housse,  but  speake  the  worde 
only  and  my  servaunt  shalbe  healed. 

9  For  y  also  my  selfe  am  a  man  vndre  power,  and  have  sowdeeres 
vndre  me,  and  y  saye  to  one,  go,  and  he  goeth :  and  to  anothre,  come, 
and  he  cometh  :  and  to  my  servaimt,  do  this,  and  he  doeth  it. 

10  When  Jesus  herde  these  saynges:  he  marveyled,  and  said  to 
them  that  folowed  him :  Verely  y  say  vnto  you,  I  have  not  founde  so 
great  fayth  :  no,  not  in  Israeli. 

11  I  say  therfore  vnto  you,  that  many  shall  come  from  the  eest  and 
Aveest,  and  shall  rest  with  Abraham,  Ysaac  and  Jacob,  in  the  kyngdom 
of  heven : 

12  And  the  children  of  the  kingdom  shalbe  cast  out  in  to  the 
vtmoost  dercknes,  there  shalbe  wepinge  and  gnasshing  of  tethe. 

13  Then  Jesus  said  vnto  the  Centurion,  go  thy  waye,  and  as  thou 
hast  believed  so  be  it  vnto  the.  And  his  servaunt  was  healed  that 
same  houre. 

14  And  Jesus  went  into  Peters  housse,  and  saw  his  wyves  mother 
lyinge  sicke  of  a  fevre, 

15  And  he  thouched  her  hande,  and  the  fevre  leeft  her;  and  she 
arose,  and  ministred  vnto  them. 

16  When  the  even  was  come  they  brought  vnto  him  many  that 
were  possessed  with  devylles.  And  he  cast  out  the  spirites  with  a  word, 
and  healed  all  that  were  sicke, 

17  To  fulfill  that  whiche  was  spoken  by  Esay  the  prophet  sainge.: 
He  toke  on  him  oure  infirmytes,  and  bare  oure  sicknesses. 

18  When  Jesus  saw  moche  people  about  him,  he  commaunded  to 
go  over  the  water. 

19  And  there  cam  a  scribe  and  said  vnto  him  :  master,  I  woU  folowe 
the  whythersumever  thou  goest. 

20  And  Jesus  said  vnto  him:  the  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  byrddes 
of  the  ftier  have  nestes,  but  the  sonne  of  man  hath  not  whereon  to  leye 
his  heede : 

21  Anothre  that  was  one  ofhys  disciples  seyd  vnto  him:  master 
suffre  me  fyrst  to  go  and  burye  my  father. 

22  But  Jesus  said  vnto  him :  folowe  me,  and  let  the  deed  burie 
their  deed. 

23  And  he  entred  in  to  a  shyppe,  and  his  disciples  folowed  him, 

24  And  lo  there  arose  a  greate  storme  in  the  see,  in  so  moche,  that 
the  shippe  was  hyd  with  waves,  and  he  was  aslepe. 

31  U    2 


532  SIR   JOHN   CIIEKE  Lect.  XI. 

25  And  his  disciples  cam  vnto  him,  and  awoke  him,  sayinge: 
master,  save  us,  we  perishe. 

26  And  he  said  vnto  them:  why  are  ye  fearful!,  o  ye  endewed  with 
lytell  faithe  ?  Then  he  arose,  and  rebuked  the  wyndes  and  the  see, 
and  there  folowed  a  greate  calme. 

27  And  men  marveyled  and  said:  what  man  is  this,  that  bothe 
wyndes  and  see  obey  him  ? 

28  And  when  he  was  come  to  the  other  syde,  in  to  the  countre  off 
the  gergesens,  there  met  him  two  possessed  of  devylls,  which  cam  out 
off  the  graves,  and  were  out  off  measure  fearce,  so  that  no  man  myght 
go  by  that  waye. 

29  And  lo  they  cryed  out  saynge :  0  Jesu  the  sonne  off  God,  what 
have  we  to  do  with  the?  art  thou  come  hyther  to  torment  vs  before  the 
tyme  [be  come]  ? 

30  There  was  a  good  waye  off  from  them  a  greate  heerd  of  swyne 
fedinge. 

31  Then  the  devyls  besought  him  saynge:  if  thou  cast  vs  out, 
suffre  vs  to  go  oure  waye  into  the  heerd  of  swyne. 

32  And  he  said  vnto  them  :  go  youre  wayes :  Then  went  they  out, 
and  departed  into  the  heerd  of  swyne.  And  lo,  all  the  heerd  of  swyne 
was  caryed  with  violence  hedlinge  into  the  see,  and  perisshed  in  the 
water. 

33  Then  the  heerdmen  fleed,  and  went  there  ways  into  the  cite,  and 
tolde  every  thinge,  and  what  had  fortuned  vnto  them  that  were  possessed 
of  the  devyls. 

34  And  lo,  all  the  cite  cam  out,  and  met  Jesus.  And  when  they 
sawe  him  they  besought  him,  to  depart  out  off  there  costes. 

III. 

SIR   JOHN   CHEKE*S   TRANSLATION   OF   MATTHEW   VIII. 

And  when  he  cam  from  y®  hil  y®^'*  folowd  him  a  greet  companj  of 
men,  and  lo  a  leper  stood,  and  boud  himself  to  him  ^  and  said  L.  if  yow 
wilt  yow  maist  clens  me,  And  Jesus  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and 
touched  him  and  said.  J  wil.  be  thow  clensed.  And  bi  and  bi  his 
lepemes  was  clensed.  And  Jesus  said  vnto  him,  look  5^ow  tel  no  man. 
But  go  y  wais  schew  yself  to  y®  priest.  And  offer  y*  gift  which  Moses 
comanded  to  be  given  y*  y^^  might  beer  witness  yeerof 

As  Jesus  cam  into  Capernaum,  yeer  cam  an  hunderder  vnto  him  and 
sued  vnto  him  on  this  sort.     Sir  mi  servant  2  lieth  sick  in  mi  house  of 

*  irpoaeKvvsi.  2  >jj-a1g. 


Lect.  XI.  SIR  JOHN   CHEKE  533 

y®  palscj,  grevousli  tormented.  And  Jesus  said  vnto  him.  I  wil  come 
and  heel  him.  And  y«  hunderder  answerd  him  with  y^^s  wordes.  Sir 
J  am  not  a  fit  man  whoos  house  ye  schold  enter.  Sal  ye  onli  y^  word 
and  mi  servant  ^  schal  be  heeled.  For  I  am  a  man  vnder  y®  power  of 
oyer,  and  have  soldiers  vnderneth  me,  and  J  sai  to  y^  soldier  go  and 
he  goeth,  and  to  an  other  com  and  he  cometh,  and  to  mi  servant  do  y^ 
and  he  doth  it.  Jesus  heering  y*  marvelled  and  said  to  j^^  y*  folowed 
him.  Trull  J  vsai  vnto  yow,  J  have  not  found  so  greet  faith  no  not  in 
JsrI.  But  J  sai  vnto  yow  y*  mani  schal  com  from  y®  Est,  and  y^  West, 
and  schal  be  set  with  Abraham  Jsaak  and  Jacob  in  y®  kingdoom  of 
heaven,  but  y®  childern  of  y®  kingdoom  schal  be  thrown  in  to  outward 
darknes,  yeer  schal  be  weping  and  gnasching  of  teth-  And  Jesus  said 
to  y®  hunderder,  go  y  wais  and  as  yow  belevedst,  so  be  it  vnto  y^.  And 
his  servant  was  heeled  even  in  y^  saam  howr. 

And  Jesus  cam  in  to  Peters  hous,  and  saw  his  moother  in  law  laid 
down  and  sick  of  y®  axess,^  and  he  touched  her  bi  y^  hand  and  y®  a^es 
left  her,  and  sche  roos  and  served  them. 

And  late  in  y®  evening  j^^  brought  him  mani  y*  was  develled,  and 
with  his  word  he  cast  out  y®  sprits,  and  healed  al  y*  weer  il  at  ease,  y* 
Jsaie  y®  p^pheets' wordes  which  he  spaak  might  be  fulfilled.  He  hath 
taken  our  weaknes  on  him,  and  hath  born  our  sickness. 

And  Jesus  seing  much  resort  about  him  comanded  yem  to  go  to  ye 
fur  side  of  y®  water.  And  on  of  y®  Scribes  cam  and  said  vnto  him. 
Master  J  wil  folow  y®  whiyersoever  yow  goost.  and  Jesus  said  vnto 
him,  Foxes  hath  dens,  and  y®  birds  of  y'aier  hath  nests,  but  y®  son  of 
man  hath  not  wheer  he  mai  lai  his  lied. 

And  an  oyer  of  his  disciples  said  vnto  him.  Sir  suffer  me  first  to 
depart,  and  buri  mi  fayer.  And  Jesus  said  vnto  him  folow  me  and  let 
y®  deed  buri  yeer  deed. 

And  after  he  entered  into  a  boot^  his  discipils*  folowed  him,  and  lo 
yeer  was  a  greet  stoorm  on  y®  see,  in  so  much  y*  y®  boot  was  coverd 
with  y®  waves.  He  slept.  And  his  discipils  came  and  raised  him,  and 
said.  L.  save  vs  we  perisch.  And  he  said  vnto  yem,  ye  smalfaithd 
whi  be  ye  aferd.  yen  he  roos  and  rebuked  y®  windes  and  y®  see,  and 
yeer  was  a  great  calm.  But  y®  men  yeer  marveled  and  saied.  What 
maner  of  man  is  y^^  y*  winds  and  see  obej  him. 

And  after  he  was  come  en  y«  other  side  into  y®  gergeseens  contree, 
yee>*  mett  him  ij  develds,  coming  forth  from  y«  graves,  veri  fiers  men,^ 
so  y*  no  man  cold  pas  y*  wai,  and  lo  y"  cried  and  said,  what  haav  we 

1   iraig.  ^  Trvperoc.  ^  tzXoIov.  ^  fjLaOrjrai.  ^  ^aXtTrot. 


534  SIR  JOHN   CHEKE  Lect.  XL 

to  do  with  y®  Jesus  yow  son  of  god.  Camest  yow  hither  afoor  hand  to 
torment  vs.  And  yeer  was  a  good  wai  from  y®"*  an  herd  of  mani  swijn 
feeding.  And  y®  devels  desird  him  saieng.  Jf  yow  cast  vs  forth  suffer 
vs  to  go  into  y«^  heard  of  swijn.  And  he  bad  y«^™  goo.  And  y^^  went 
forth,  and  went  into  y®  herd  of  swijn.  And  lo  y®  hool  heerd  of  swijn 
set  on '  y®®"^  wai  bi  an  hedlong  place  ^  in  to  y®  see,  and  died  in  y®  waters. 
And  y®  swijnherds  fled  and  came  into  citee,  and  told  y®"  y®®  hool 
matter,  and  what  taking  y®  develleds  weer  in.  And  loo  y®  hool  cittee 
cam  forth  and  met  Jesus,  and  after  y«^  had  seen  him  y®^  desired  him  y* 

eer 

he  wold  depart  out  of  yoos  coosts. 

'  ijpfirjffe,  2  uaTci  tov  Kprifivov 


LECTUEE  XII. 

THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE   AND    LITERATUEE   DUEING   THE 
REIGN   OF   ELIZABETH. 

The  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  to  which  Warton  devotes  much 
more  space,  and  ascribes  more  importance  than  it  merits,  was 
the  first  conspicuous  work  that  appeared  after  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth,  and  was  moreover  the  most  voluminous  production 
in  English  poetry  between  the  time  of  Lydgate  and  that  of 
Spenser.  It  was  the  work  of  several  different  writers ;  but  only 
one  of  them,  Sackville,  better  known  as  the  author  of  Grorboduc, 
exhibits  any  real  poetical  power. 

The  general  plan  of  the  work  is  an  imitation  of  Boccaccio's 
De  Casibus  FHncipuvi,  which,  as  I  have  mentioned,  was  made 
by  Lydgate  the  groundwork  of  his  Fall  of  Princes ;  but  the 
personages  in  the  Mirrour  for  Magistrates  all  belong  to  English 
history,  and  the  narrative  part  of  the  poem  is  little  else  than  a 
rhymed  chronicle,  designed  to  include  all  the  tragical  events 
known  to  have  happened  to  persons  distinguished  in  the  annals 
of  England. 

The  prologue  by  Sackville,  or  Induction  as  he  calls  it,  is  not 
destitute  of  invention,  and  the  versification  is  smooth  and  flow- 
ing ;  but,  both  in  this  respect  and  in  its  allegorical  representa- 
tions, it  is  so  far  inferior  to  Spenser,  that  it  has  been  deservedly 
eclipsed  by  that  great  author.  Nor  does  this  work  possess 
much  philological  value,  for  it  exhibits  few  marks  of  progress 
or  change  in  the  language.  In  this  latter  particular,  it  is  more 
archaic  than  Surrey  and  Wyatt,  who  preceded  it  by  a  generation. 


536  STANIHURST  Lect.  XII. 

The  e  final  is  sometimes  articulated  in  the  possessive,  though 
otherwise  silent,  as : 

With  Nighte's  starres  thick  powdred  every  where. 

This  is  a  point  of  some  interest,  because  it  helps  to  explain  a 
grammatical  corruption,  which  about  this  time  became  almost 
universal — the  employment  of  the  personal  pronoun  his  as  the 
sign  of  the  possessive  case. 

A  remnant  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  gerundial,  in  its  passive 
signification,  sometimes  occurs,  as : 

The  soile  that  earst  so  seemly  was  to  seen, 

seen  being  here  used  passively,  instead  of  our  modern  form  to 
be  seen.  In  this  case,  however,  seen  is  not  a  participle,  but  has 
the  force  of  a  true  passive  infinitive  or  gerundial. 

Sackville  is  the  principal,  if  not  the  sole,  author  of  a  more 
important  work,  which  has  been  published  both  under  the  title 
of  Grorboduc  and  of  Ferrex  a.nd  Porrex.  This  is  remarkable  as 
being  the  first  regular  tragedy  in  the  English  language,  though 
constructed  in  many  respects  upon  very  different  principles 
from  the  modern  tragedy.  The  most  noticeable  feature  of  its 
form  is  the  introduction  of  what  was  called  the  '  dumb  show,' 
an  allegorical  pantomimic  chorus,  at  the  beginning  of  each  act, 
and  of  a  regular  vocal  chorus  at  the  end  of  each  except  the  last. 
The  use  of  the  former  seems  to  have  been  to  fill  up  the  space 
between  the  acts  with  something  which  should  serve  to  render 
less  abrupt  the  change  of  time  and  place ;  for  the  unities  are 
not  observed  in  the  play,  and  Sackville  evidently  thought  that 
this  departure  from  the  canons  of  the  classic  stage  ought  to  be 
in  some  way  compensated. 

The  rule  of  unity  of  time  and  place  had  really  no  higher 
origin  than  the  mechanical  difficulties  of  scene-shifting  on  the 
primitive  stage.  It  is  fortunate  for  dramatic  truth  that  modern 
artists  have  been  wise  enough  to  rise  above  so  arbitrary  a  pre- 
scription.    Life  and  nature  exhibit  no  man's  whole  character. 


Lect.  XII.  STANIHURST  537 

develope  and  illustrate  no  master  passion,  in  a  single  day^  or 
upon  a  single  scene.  In  the  moral  and  intellectual,  as  in  the 
physical  world,  time  is  an  essential  element.  The  events  which 
subdue  or  aggravate  our  native  propensities  produce  no  imme- 
diate and  appreciable  effects  upon  character.  Moral  results  are 
slowly  unfolded,  and  can  be  seen  and  appreciated  only  by  the 
alternate  lights  and  shades  of  differently  combined  circum- 
stances and  varied  impulses.  Nature  does  not  upheave  and  shape 
a  continent  at  one  throe,  and  even  chemical  affinity  forms  no 
instantaneous  combinations  of  multiplied  ingredients.  Both  the 
formation  and  the  knowledge  of  character  are  gradual  and  slow. 
We  know  and  appreciate  a  man  only  by  continued  observation, 
under  different  conditions  of  time  and  place  and  circumstance ; 
and  the  characters  of  a  drama  can  best  be  revealed,  in  all  their 
completeness,  only  by  changes  of  outward  surroundings,  and  a 
succession  of  events,  the  occurrence  of  which  at  one  place  and 
one  time  implies  a  greater  violation  of  the  truth  of  life  than  is 
involved  in  the  shifting  of  a  scene,  or  the  supposition  that  days, 
or  weeks,  or  years  intervene  between  acts  of  the  drama  which, 
upon  the  stage,  are  separated  by  an  interval  of  but  a  few 
moments. 

I  have  mentioned  that  Lord  Berners's  translation  of  Froissart 
was  followed  by  the  appearance  of  several  original  English 
chronicles,  generally  of  slender  literary  merit ;  but  the  period 
we  are  now  considering  gave  birth  to  a  work  of  much  greater 
importance,  both  in  an  historical  and  in  a  philological  point  of 
view.  I  refer  to  the  Chronicle  of  Holinshed,  which,  as  well  as 
those  of  Hall  and  other  early  annalists,  was  diligently  studied 
by  Shakespeare,  and  must  have  influenced  his  style,  as  well  as 
furnished  him  with  historical  and  biographical  facts.  Holin- 
shed's  history  of  England  is  a  compilation  from  various  authors, 
some  of  earlier  date,  and  some  writing  expressly  for  this  under- 
taking. There  is,  therefore,  naturally  a  great  diversity  and 
inequality  of  style  and  of  literary  merit.  In  these  respects, 
few  parts  of  Holinshed  come  up  to  the  Life  of  Eichard  III., 


538  STANIHUBST  Lect.  XII. 

ascribed  to  More,  still  fewer  to  Cheke's  Hurt  of  Sedition.  The 
range  of  subjects  discussed  in  this  compilation  is  great;  for  the 
work  attempts  the  natural,  and  partially  the  literary,  history  of 
England,  as  well  as  its  political  and  its  martial  annals.  The 
multiplicity  of  topics  treated  required  a  corresponding  extent 
and  variety  of  diction,  and  therefore  this  chronicle,  in  its  several 
parts,  constituted  much  the  most  complete  and  comprehensive 
repository  of  the  English  tongue  which  had  yet  appeared.  It 
is  hence  of  great  value,  as  an  exhibition  of  the  full  resources  of 
the  language  of  prose  in  the  middle  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign. 
The  most  curious,  and,  to  the  lexicographer  at  least,  the  most 
important  part  of  this  collection,  is  the  description  and  history 
of  Ireland  by  Eichard  Stanihurst,  contained  in  the  sixth  volume 
of  the  edition  of  1808.  Stanihurst  was  a  literary  coxcomb,  who 
had  a  high  and  apparently  a  well-merited  reputation  for  learn- 
ing, but  who  did  not  succeed  in  impressing  his  contemporaries 
with  much  respect  for  his  abilities  as  an  original  writer,  or  even 
as  a  translator;  for,  like  most  of  the  literati  of  his  time,  he 
attempted  the  difficult  problem  of  rendering  the  beauties  of 
classic  poetry  in  modern  verse.  He  published  a  version  of  the 
first  four  books  of  Virgil's  JEueid  in  hexameters,  but  does  not 
seem  to  have  found  encouragement  in  public  favour  to  prosecute 
the  work.  Nashe,  as  quoted  by  Wart  on,  observes  that  *  Stany- 
hio-st,  the  otherwise  learned,  trod  a  foul,  lumbring,  boisterous, 
wallowing  measure  in  his  translation  of  Virgil.'  The  reader 
will  not  find  in  the  following  specimen,  which  I  take  from 
Warton,  much  cause  to  dissent  from  this  opinion  : — 

With  tentiue  listning  each  wight  was  setled  in  harkning ; 
Then  father  ^neas  chronicled  from  loftie  bed  hautie  : 
You  bid  me,  O  princesse,  to  scarifie  a  festerd  old  sore, 
Now  that  the  Troians  were  prest  by  the  Grecian  armie, 

Warton  adds, '  With  all  this  foolish  pedantry,  Stanyhurst  was 
certainly  a  scholar.  But  in  this  translation  he  calls  Chorebus, 
one  of  the  Trojan  chiefs,  a  bedlamite ;  he  says  that  old  Priam 


Lect.  XII.  STANIHUEST  539 

girded  on  his  sword  Morglay*  the  name  of  a  sword  in  the 
Grothic  romances  ;  that  Dido  would  have  been  glad  to  have  been 
brought  to  bed  even  of  a  cockney,  a  Bandi^jvat  hopthumh ;  and 
that  Jupiter,  in  kissing  his  daughter,  bust  his  pretty  pirating 
parrot.^  The  same  critic  quotes  these  lines  from  a  piece  of 
Stanihurst's  called  'An  Epitaph  against  rhyme,'  the  object"  of 
which,  I  suppose,  was  to  illustrate,  by  example,  the  great  supe- 
riority of  the  hexameter  to  the  more  modern  measures,  and  the 
advantages  of  combining  the  two  systems: — 

A  Sara  for  goodnesse,  a  great  Bellona  for  budgenesse, 

For  myldnesse  Anna,  for  chastitye  godlye  Susanna. 

Hester  in  a  good  shift,  a  Judith  stoute  at  a  dead  lift : 

Also  lulietta,  with  Dido  rich  Cleopatra  : 

With  sundrie  namelesse,  and  women  many  more  blamelesse,  &c. 

Stanihurst  flourished  in  that  brief  period  of  philological  and 
literary  affectation  which  for  a  time  threatened  the  language, 
the  poetry,  and  even  the  prose  of  England  with  a  degradation 
as  complete  as  that  of  the  speech  and  the  literature  of  the  last 
age  of  imperial  Eome.  This  quality  of  style  appears  in  its 
most  offensive  form  in  the  nauseous  rhymes  of  Skelton,  in  its 
most  elegant  in  Lillie,  in  its  most  quaint  and  ludicrous  in 
Stanihurst.  Spenser  and  Shakespeare  were  the  Dei  ex  machina 
who  checked  the  ravages  of  this  epidemic ;  but  it  still  showed 
virulent  symptoms  in  Sylvester,  and  the  style  of  glorious  Fuller 
and  of  gorgeous  Browne  is  tinted  with  a  glow  which  is  all  the 
more  attractive  because  it  is  recognised  as  the  flush  of  convales- 
cence from  what  had  been  a  dangerous  malady. 

Stanihurst's  dedication  of  his  history  to  '  Sir  Henrie  Sidneie, 
Lord  Deputie  Generall  of  Ireland,'  is  characteristic : — 

My  verie  good  Lord,  there  haue  beene  diuerse  of  late,  that  with  no 
small  toile,  and  great  commendation,  haue  throiighlie  imploied  them- 
selues  in  culling  and  packing  togither  the  scrapings  and  fragments  of 

*  Warton  seems  to  have  oyerlooked  the  obvious  etymology  of  this  name, 
which  is  Komance,  not  Gothic,  it  being  a  compound  of  mortandglaive. 


640  STANIHUBST  Lect.  XII. 

the  historie  of  Ireland.  Among  which  crue,  my  fast  friend,  and  inward 
companion,  maister  Edmund  Campion  did  so  learnedlie  bequite  him- 
selfe,  in  the  penning  of  certeine  breefe  notes,  concerning  that  countrie, 
as  certes  it  was  greatlie  to  be  lamented,  that  either  his  theame  had  not 
beene  shorter,  or  else  his  leasure  had  not  beene  longer.  For  if  Alexan- 
der were  so  rauisht  with  Homer  his  historie,  that  notwithstanding 
Thersites  were  a  crabbed  and  a  rugged  dwarfe,  being  in  outward  feature 
so  deformed,  and  in  inward  conditions  so  crooked,  as  he  seemed  to 
stand  to  no  better  steed,  than  to  lead  apes  in  hell :  yet  the  valiant  cap- 
teine,  weighing  how  liuelie  the  golden  poet  hath  set  forth  the  ouglie 
dandeprat  in  his  colours,  did  sooner  wish  to  be  Homer  his  Thersites, 
than  to  be  the  Alexander  of  that  doltish  rithmour,  which  vntertooke 
with  his  woodden  verses  to  blase  his  famous  and  martiall  exploits :  how 
much  more  ought  Ireland  (being  in  sundrie  ages  seized  of  diuerse  good 
and  coragious  Alexanders)  sore  to  long  and  thirst  after  so  rare  a  clarke 
as  maister  Campion,  who  was  so  vpright  in  conscience,  so  deepe  in 
iudgement,  so  ripe  in  eloquence,  as  the  countrie  might  haue  beene  well 
assured  to  haue  had  their  historie  trulie  reported,  pithilie  handled,  and 
brauelie  polished. 

Howbeit  although  the  glose  of  his  fine  abbridgment,  being  matcht 
with  other  mens  dooings,  bare  a  surpassing  kind  of  excellencie  :  yet  it 
was  so  hudled  up  in  haste,  as  in  respect  of  a  Campion  his  absolute  per- 
fection, it  seemed  rather  to  be  a  woorke  roughlie  hewed,  than  smoothlie 
planed.  Vpon  which  ground  the  gentlemen  being  willing  that  his  so 
tender  a  suckhng,  hauing  as  yet  but  greene  bones,  should  haue  been 
swadled  and  rockt  in  a  cradle,  till  in  tract  of  time  the  ioints  thereof 
were  knit,  and  growen  stronger :  yet  notwithstanding  he  was  so  crost 
in  the  nicke  of  this  determination,  that  his  historie  in  mitching  wise 
wandred  through  sundrie  hands,  and  being  therewithal!  in  certeine  places 
somewhat  tickle  toonged  (for  maister  Campion  did  learne  it  to  speake) 
and  in  other  places  ouer  spare,  it  twitlcd  more  tales  out  of  schoole, 
and  drowned  weightier  matters  in  silence,  than  the  author  (vpon  better 
view  and  longer  search)  would  haue  permitted.  Thus  much  being  by 
the  sager  sort  pondered,  and  the  perfection  of  the  historie  earnestlie 
desired :  I,  as  one  of  the  most  that  could  doo  least,  was  fully  resolued 
to  inrich  maister  Campion  his  chronicle,  with  further  additions.  But 
weighing  on  the  other  side,  that  my  course  packthred  could  not  haue 
beene  sutablie  knit  with  his  fine  silke,  and  what  a  disgrace  it  were, 
bungerlie  to  botch  vp  a  rich  garment,  by  clouting  it  with  patches  of 
sundrie  colours,  I  was  forthwith  reclaimed  from  my  former  resolution, 
reckoning  it  for  better,  that  my  pen  should  walke  in  such  wise  in  that 


Lect.  Xir.  STANIHURST  541 

craggie  and  balkish  waie,  as  the  truth  of  the  matter  being  forprised,  I 
would  neither  openlie  borrow,  nor  priuilie  imbezell  aught  to  anie  great 
purpose  from  his  historic.  But  as  I  was  hammering  that  worke  by 
stealths  on  the  anuill,  I  was  giuen  to  vnderstand  by  some  of  mine 
acquaintance,  that  others  had  brought  our  raw  historic  to  that  ripe- 
nesse,  as  my  paine  therein  would  seeme  but  needlessc.  Wherevpon 
being  willing  to  be  eased  of  the  burden,  and  loath  also  in  lurching  wise 
to  forstall  any  man  his  trauell,  I  was  contented  to  leue  them  thumping 
in  the  forge,  and  quietlie  to  repaire  to  mine  vsuall  and  pristinat  studies, 
taking  it  not  to  stand  with  good  maners,  like  a  flittering  flie  to  fall  in 
an  other  man  his  dish.  Howbeit  the  little  paine  I  tooke  therein  was 
not  so  secretlie  mewed  within  my  closet,  but  it  slipt  out  at  one  chinke 
or  other,  and  romed  so  farre  abroad,  as  it  was  whispered  in  their  eares 
who  before  were  in  the  historic  busied.  The  gentlemen  conceiuing  a 
greater  opinion  of  me  than  I  was  well  able  to  vphold,  dealt  verie  eiFec- 
tuallie  with  me,  that  as  well  at  their  instance,  as  for  the  affection  I  bare 
my  natiue  countrie,  I  would  put  mine  helping  hand  to  the  building 
and  perfecting  of  so  commendable  a  worke.  Hauing  breathed  for  a 
few  dales  on  this  motion,  albeit  I  knew  that  my  worke  was  plumed 
with  downe,  and  at  that  time  was  not  sufficientlie  feathered  to  flie :  yet 
I  was  by  them  weied  not  to  beare  my  selfe  coy,  by  giuing  my  entier 
friends  in  so  reasonable  a  request  a  squemish  repulse.  Wherefore,  my 
singular  good  lord,  hereis  laid  downe  to  your  lordship  his  view  a  briefe 
discourse,  with  a  iagged  historic  of  a  ragged  wealepublike.  Yet  as 
naked  as  at  the  first  blush  it  seemeth,  if  it  shall  stand  with  your 
honor  his  pleasure  (whom  I  take  to  be  an  expert  lapidarie)  at  vacant 
houres  to  insearch  it,  you  shall  find  therein  stones  of  such  estimation, 
as  are  Avorth  to  be  coucht  in  rich  and  pretious  collars.  And  in  especial! 
your  lordship,  aboue  all  others,  in  that  you  haue  the  charge  of  that 
countrie,  male  here  be  schooled,  by  a  right  line  to  leuell  your 
gouernement.  For  in  perusing  this  historic,  you  shall  find  vice 
punished,  vertue  rewarded,  rebellion  suppressed,  loialtie  exalted, 
haughtinesse  disliked,  courtesie  beloued,  briberie  detested,  iustice  im- 
braced,  polling  officers  to  their  perpetuall  shame  reprooued,  and 
vpright  gouernours  to  their  eternall  fame  extolled.  And  trulie  to 
my  thinking  such  magistrats  as  meane  to  have  a  vigilant  eie  to  their 
charge,  cannot  bestow  their  time  better,  than  when  they  sequester 
themselues  from  the  affaires  of  the  wealepublike,  to  recreat  and  quicken 
their  spirits  by  reading  the  chronicles  that  decipher  the  gouernement  of 
a  wealepublike.  For  as  it  is  no  small  commendation  for  one  to  beare 
the  dooings  of  manie,  so  it  breedeth  great  admiration,  generallie  to  haue 


542  STANIHUBST  Lect.  XII. 

all  those  qualities  in  one  man  harboured,  for  whiche  particularlie 
diuerse  are  eternised.  And  who  so  will  be  addicted  to  the  reading  of 
histories,  shall  readilie  find  diuerse  euents  worthie  to  be  remembered, 
and  sundrie  sound  examples  dailie  to  be  followed.  Vpon  which  ground 
the  learned  haue,  not  without  cause,  adiudged  an  historie  to  be  the 
marrow  of  reason,  the  creame  of  experience,  the  sap  of  wisdome,  the 
pith  of  iudgement,  the  librarie  of  knowledge,  the  kemell  of  policie, 
the  vnfoldresse  of  treacherie,  the  kalender  of  time,  the  lanterne  of 
truth,  the  life  of  memorie,  the  doctresse  of  behauiour,  the  register  of 
antiquitie,  the  trumpet  of  chiualrie.  And  that  our  Irish  historie  being 
diligentlie  heeded,  yeeldeth  all  these  commodities,  I  trust  the  indifferent 
reader,  vpon  the  vntwining  thereof,  will  not  denie.  But  if  anie  man 
his  stomach  shall  be  found  so  tenderlie  niced,  or  so  deintilie  spiced,  as 
that  he  male  not,  forsooth,  digest  the  grosse  draffe  of  so  base  a  countrie, 
I  doubt  not  but  your  lordship,  who  is  thoroughlie  acquainted  with  the 
woorthinesse  of  the  Hand,  will  be  soone  persuaded  to  leaue  such  quaint 
and  licourous  repastours,  to  feed  on  their  costlie  and  delicate  wood- 
cocks, and  willinglie  to  accept  the  louing  present  of  your  heartie  wel- 
willer.  The  gift  is  small,  the  giuer  his  good  will  is  great :  I  stand  in 
good  hope,  that  the  greatnesse  of  the  one  will  counterpoise  the  smal- 
nesse  of  the  other.  Wherefore  that  I  maie  the  sooner  vnbroid  the 
pelfish  trash  that  is  wrapt  within  this  treatise,  I  shalle  craue  your 
lordship  to  lend  me  either  your  ears  in  hearing,  or  your  eies  in 
reading  the  tenor  of  the  discourse  following. 

I  add  the  following  passages  from  pp.  6,  7,  for  the  sake  of 
the  odd  speculations  on  language.  It  is  noticeable  that  among 
the  words  mentioned  by  Stanihurst,  near  the  end  of  the  extract, 
as  having  been  borrowed  by  the  Irish  from  the  English,  are 
coat  and  gown.  These  are  two  of  the  words  cited  by  Davies  as 
sufficient  proof  to  'convict'  the  Englishman  '  of  belonging  to  a 
race  that  partakes  largely  of  Celtic  blood.'  I  have  no  doubt 
that  Davies  is  an  abler  philologist  than  Stanihurst ;  but  Stani- 
hurst  is  good  evidence  to  show  that  these  words  were  not 
claimed  as  Celtic  in  Celtic  Ireland  itself,  three  hundred  years 
ago. 

I  find  it  solemnlie  aduouched,  aswell  in  some  of  the  Irish  pamphlets 
as  in  Girald.  Camb.  that  Gathelus  or  Gaidelus,  &  after  him  Simon 
Brecke,  deuised  the  Irish  language  out  of  all  other  toongs  then  extant 


Lect.  XII.  STANIHURST  543 

in  the  world.  And  thereof  (saith  Cambrensis)  it  is  called  Gaidelach, 
partlie  of  Gaidelus  the  first  founder,  and  partlie  for  that  it  is  com- 
pounded of  all  languages.  But  considering  the  course  of  interchanging 
and  blending  of  speeches  togither,  not  by  inuention  of  art,  but  by  vse 
of  talke,  I  am  rather  led  to  beleeue  (seeing  Ireland  was  inhabited 
within  one  yeare  after  the  diuision  of  toongs)  that  Bastolenus,  a  branch 
of  Japhet,  who  first  seized  vpon  Ireland,  brought  thither  the  same  kind 
of  speech,  some  of  the  72  that  to  this  familie  befell  at  the  desolation  of 
Babell.  Vnto  whom  succeeded  the  Scithians,  Grecians,  Egyptians, 
Spaniards,  Danes,  of  all  which  the  toong  must  needs  have  borowed 
part,  but  especiallie  reteining  the  steps  of  Spanish  then  spoken  in 
Granado,  as  from  their  mightiest  ancestors.  Since  then  to  Henrie 
Fitzempresse  the  conqueror  no  such  inuasion  happened  them,  as 
whereby  they  might  be  driuen  to  infect  their  natiue  language,  vntouched 
in  manner  for  the  space  of  seuenteene  hundred  yeares  after  the  arriuall 
of  Iberius.  It  seemeth  to  borrow  of  the  Spanish  the  common  phrase, 
Commestato,  that  is,  Hoav  doo  you  ?  or  how  fareth  it  with  you  ?  It 
fetchetch  sundrie  words  from  the  Latine,  as  arget  of  Argentum,  monie ; 
salle  of  seel,  salt ;  cappoulle  of  Cahallus,  a  plough  horse,  or  (according 
vnto  the  old  English  terme)  a  caball  or  caple :  birreat  of  the  old 
motheaten  Latine  word  Birretum,  a  bonnet.  The  toong  is  sharpe  and 
sententious,  &  ofFereth  great  occasion  to  quicke  apophthegms  and 
proper  allusions.  Wherefore  their  common  iesters  and  rimers,  whom 
they  terme  Bards,  are  said  to  delight  passinglie  these  that  conceiue  the 
grace  and  propertie  of  the  toong.  But  the  true  Irish  indeed  difFereth 
so  much  from  that  they  commonlie  speake,  that  scarse  one  in  fine 
hundred  can  either  'read,  write,  or  vnderstand  it.  Therefore  it  is 
preserued  among  certeine  of  their  poets  and  antiquaries.  And  in  verie 
deed  the  language  carrieth  such  difficultie  with  it,  what  for  the  strange- 
nesse  of  the  phrase,  and  the  curious  featnes  of  the  pronuntiation,  that  a 
verie  few  of  the  countrie  can  atteine  to  the  perfection  thereof,  and  much 
lesse  a  forrener  or  stranger. 

A  gentleman  of  mine  acquaintance  reported,  that  he  did  see  a  woman 
in  Eome,  which  was  possessed  with  a  babling  spirit,  that  could  haue 
chatted  anie  language  sauing  the  Irish ;  and  that  it  was  so  difficult,  as 
the  verie  deuell  was  grauelled  therewith.  A  gentleman  that  stood  by 
answered,  that  he  tooke  the  speech  to  be  so  sacred  and  holie,  that  no 
damned  feend  had  the  power  to  speake  it ;  no  more  than  they  are  able 
to  saie  (as  the  report  goeth)  the  verse  of  saint  John  the  euangelist,  *  Et 
verbum  caro  factum  est.'  Naie  by  God  his  mercie  man  (quoth  the 
other)  I  stand  in  doubt  (I  tell  you)  whether  the  apostles  in  their 


544  STANIHURST  Lect.  XIL 

copious  mart  of  languages  at  Jerusalem  could  haue  spoken  Irish,  if 
they  wore  apposed :  whereat  the  companie  heartilie  laughed.  As  fluent 
as  the  Irish  toong  is,  yet  it  lacketh  diuerse  words,  and  borroweth  them 
verbatim  of  the  English.  As  there  is  no  vulgar  Irish  word  (vnlesse 
there  be  some  od  terme  that  lurketh  in  anie  obscure  shrowds  or  other 
of  their  storehouse)  for  a  cote,  a  gowne,  a  dublet,  an  hat,  a  drinking 
cup :  but  onelie  they  vse  the  same  words  with  a  little  inflexion.  They 
vse  also  the  contracted  English  phrase,  God  morrow,  that  is  to  sale, 
God  giue  you  a  good  morning. 

The  space  I  have  devoted  to  Stanihurst  may  seem  out  of 
proportion  to  his  merits ;  but  I  have  dwelt  upon  him  as  perhaps 
the  most  characteristic  specimen  of  the  very  numerous,  though 
short-lived,  class  to  which  he  belongs  —  a  class  which  has 
exercised  a  more  important  and,  I  must  add,  in  the  end  bene- 
ficial, influence  on  the  English  language  than  appears  to  have 
been  generally  allowed.  The  straining  after  effect,  which  is  so 
visible  in  these  writers,  led  them  to  employ  the  widest  voca- 
bulary within  their  reach,  and  to  experiment  upon  all  possible 
combinations  of  words.  Their  extravagances  were  soon  made 
ridiculous  by  the  purer  style  of  the  generation  of  authors  which 
immediately  followed  them,  and  while  they  were,  but  for  a  very 
brief  period,  dangerous  by  the  force  of  their  example,  their 
afl^uence  and  variety  of  diction  long  served  as  a  repository  of 
verbal  wealth,  which  succeeding  literature  has  largely  drawn 
upon. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  literary  and  philological  affectation  of 
Stanihurst's  time,  as  having  assumed  its  most  elegant  form  in 
the  works  of  Lillie,  the  Euphuist.  Though  the  quality  of  style 
called  Euphuism  has  more  or  less  prevailed  in  all  later  periods 
of  English  literature,  the  name  which  designates  it  had  become 
almost  obsolete  and  forgotten,  until  Scott  revived  it  in  his 
character  of  Sir  Piercie  Shafton.  The  word  is  taken  from 
Euphues,*  the  name  of  the  hero  of  a  tale  by  John  Lillie,  the 
first  part  of  which  is  entitled  Euphues,  the  anatomic  of  Wit ; 

*  The  Greek  iv(f)vfis  means  •well-growTi,  symmetrical ;  also  clever,  witty,  and  this 
is  the  sense  in  which  Lillie  applies  it  to  his  hero. 


Lect.  XII.  EUPHUISM  545 

the  second,  Eiiphues  and  his  England.  It  consists  of  the  his- 
tory and  correspondence  of  a  young  Athenian,  who,  after 
spending  some  time  in  Italy,  visits  England,  in  the  year  1579; 
and  as  this  was  the  period  when  the  author  flourished,  it  was, 
of  course,  a  story  of  the  time  of  its  appearance.  The  plot  is  a 
mere  thread  for  an  endless  multitude  of  what  were  esteemed 
fine  sayings  to  be  strung  upon,  or,  as  Lillie  himself  expresses 
it,  ^  fine  phrases,  smooth  quips,  merry  taunts,  jesting  without 
meane  and  mirth  without  measure.'  The  formal  characteristics 
of  Euphuism  are  alliteration  and  verbal  antithesis.  Its  rhe- 
torical and  intellectual  traits  will  be  better  understood  by  an 
example,  than  by  a  critical  analysis.  An  extract  from  the 
dedication  of  the  second  edition  to  the  author's  *Very  good 
friends,  the  Grentlemen  Scholers  of  Oxford,'  may  serve  as  a  spe- 
cimen.    It  is  as  follows  :  — 

There  is  no  ^privilege  that  needeth  a  pardon,  neither  is  there  any 
remission  to  be  asked,  where  a  commission  is  granted.  I  speake  this, 
Gentlemen,  not  to  excuse  the  o/fence  which  is  taken,  but  to  offer  a 
(defence  where  I  was  mistaken.  A  cleare  conscience  is  a  sure  card,  truth 
hath  the  prerogatiue  to  speake  with  plainnesse,  and  the  modesty  to  heare 
with  i^atience.  It  was  reported  of  some,  and  beleueed  of  many,  that  in 
the  education  of  Ephoebns,  where  mention  is  made  ofUniuersities,  that 
Oxford  was  to  much  either  de/acec?  or  diefamed.  I  know  not  what  the 
enuious  have  picked  out  by  malice,  or  the  curious  by  wit,  or  the  guilty 
by  their  own  galled  consciences ;  but  this  I  say,  that  I  was  as  farre  from 
thinking  ill  as  I  find  them  from  iudging  well.  But  if  I  should  goe  about 
to  make  amends,  I  were  then  faulty  in  somewhat  amisse,  and  should  shew 
my  selfe  like  Apelles  Prentice,  who  coueting  to  mend  the  no&e  warred 
the  neck ;  and  not  vnlike  the  fooHsh  Dier,  who  neuer  thought  his  cloth 
Jlack  vntil  it  was  turned.  If  any  fault  be  committed,  impute  it  to 
Euphues  who  knew  you  not,  not  to  Lylie  who  hates  you  not.  Yet  I  may 
of  all  the  rest  most  condemne  Oxford  of  vnkindnesse,  of  vice  I  cannot, 
who  seemed  to  weane  me  before  she  brought  me  forth,  and  to  giue  me 
bones  to  gnaw  before  I  could  get  the  teat  to  suck.  Wherein  she  played 
the  nice  mother,  in  sending  me  into  the  Country  to  nurse,  where  I  tyred 
at  a  dry  breast  three  yeeres,  and  was  at  the  last  enforced  to  weane  my 
selfe.     But  it  was  destiny,  for  if  I  had  not  bin  gathered  from  the  tree 

N  N 


546  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY  Lect.  XII. 

in  the  bud,  I  should  being  blowne  haue  proued  a  blast :  and  as  good  it 
is  to  be  an  addle  Egge,  as  an  idle  bird. 

Euphues  at  his  arriuall  I  am  assured  will  view  Oxford,  where  he 
will  either  recant  his  sayings,  or  renue  his  complaints :  he  is  now  on 
the  seas ;  and  how  he  hath  beene  tossed  I  know  not :  but  whereas  I 
thought  to  receiue  him  at  Doner,  I  must  meet  him  at  Hampton. 
Nothing  can  hinder  his  comming  but  death,  neither  anything  hasten 
his  departure  but  vnlvindnes«e. 

Concerning  my  selfe,  I  haue  alwayes  thought  so  reuerently  of 
Oxford,  of  the  Schollers,  and  of  their  manner,  that  I  seemed  to  be 
rather  an  Idolater  than  a  blasphemer.  They  that  inuented  this  toy 
were  vnwise,  and  they  that  reported  it,  vnkind,  and  yet  none  of  them 
can  proue  me  vnhonest.  But  suppose  I  glaunced  at  some  abuses ;  did 
not  lupiters  egge  bring  forth  as  well  Helen  a  light  huswife  in  earth 
as  Castor  a  bright  starre  in  heauen?  The  Estrich  that  taketh  the 
greatest  pride  in  her  feathers,  picked  some  blast :  no  countenance  but 
hath  some  blemish  ;  and  shall  Oxford  then  be  blameless  ?  I  wish  it 
were  so,  but  I  cannot  think  it  is  so.  But  as  it  is,  it  may  be  better : 
and  were  it  badder,  it  is  not  the  worst.  I  thinke  there  are  few  Vni- 
uersities  that  haue  lesse  faults  than  Oxford,  many  that  haue  more,  none 
but  haue  some.  But  I  commit  my  cause  to  the  consciences  of  those 
that  either  know  what  I  am,  or  can  guesse  what  I  should  be  :  the  one 
will  answer  themselues  in  construing  friendly,  the  other  if  I  knew  them, 
I  would  satisfie  reasonably. 

Thus  loth  to  incur  the  suspicion  of  vnkindnesse  in  not  telling  my 
mind,  and  not  willing  to  make  any  excuse  where  there  needs  no 
amends,  I  can  neither  craue  pardon,  lest  I  should  confesse  a  fault,  nor 
conceale  my  meaning,  lest  I  should  be  thought  a  foole.  And  so  I  end 
yours  assured  to  use. 

The  success  of  Eiipbues  was  very  great.  The  work  was 
lonof  a  vade-mecum  with  the  fashionable  world,  and  considered 
a  model  of  elegance  in  writing  and  the  highest  of  authorities  in 
all  matters  of  courtly  and  polished  speech.  It  contains,  with  all 
its  affectations,  a  great  multitude  of  acute  observations,  and  just 
and  even  profound  thoughts;  and  it  was  these  striking  qualities, 
not  less  than  the  tinsel  of  its  style,  which  commended  it  to  the 
practical  good  sense  of  contemporary  England. 

The  style  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments 
of  the  elegant  prose  literature  of  his  day,  is  not  a  little  affected 


Lect.  XII.  SYLVESTER  547 

by  the  prevalent  taste  for  the  conceits  of  euphuism,  though  he 
introduces  them  much  less  frequently  than  Lillie ;  for  they  form 
the  staple  of  Lillie's  diction,  while  they  are  but  occasional 
blemishes  in  that  of  Sidney.  Sidney  is,  however,  much  less 
dexterous  and  graceful  in  the  use  of  alliteration,  consonance, 
and  antithesis,  than  the  great  improver,  if  not  the  inventor,  of 
this  artificial  style.  With  Sir  Philip,  they  are  so  laboured  and 
unnatural,  as  almost  always  to  produce  an  appearance  of  clumsi- 
ness and  want  of  skill,  rather  than  of  mastery,  in  a  trifling  art ; 
while  from  the  pen  of  Lillie  they  flow  as  easily  as  if  he  could 
speak  no  other  dialect. 

Sidney's  tedious  romance,  the  Arcadia,  much  admired  when 
first  published,  is  now  deservedly  almost  forgotten  ;  but  his  in- 
genious and  eloquent  Defence  of  Poesy  will  always  maintain  a 
high  place  in  the  sesthetical  literature  of  England.  It  is  not 
only  an  earnest  and  persuasive  argument,  but  is,  in  style  and 
diction,  the  best  secular  prose  yet  written  in  England,  and 
indeed  the  earliest  specimen  of  real  critical  talent  in  the  lite- 
rature. 

The  poems  of  Sidney,  though  relatively  less  remarkable  than 
the  Defence  of  Poesy,  and  more  frequently  disfigured  by  trivial 
conceits,  are,  nevertheless,  conspicuous  for  propriety  and  elegance 
of  language,  and  ease  and  grace  of  versification.  Some  of  them 
are  in  classic  metres,  but  the  best  perhaps  are  those  fashioned 
after  Italian  models,  and  especially  the  sonnets.  But  the  re- 
semblance of  these  poems  to  those  whose  versification  and  stanza 
they  imitate  is,  as  in  the  case  of  Surrey,  formal  merely;  for 
they  are  English,  not  Italian,  in  thought,  and  their  diction  has 
borrowed  nothing  from  the  language  of  Italy. 

The  favour  of  the  English  public  was  next  divided  between 
two  authors,  one  of  whom  is  now  almost  wholly  forgotten,  and 
the  other  is,  after  a  temporary  oblivion,  now  again  reviving  and 
recovering  his  just  position  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  English 
poets.  I  refer  to  Sylvester,  the  translator  of  the  works  of  Du 
Bartas,  a  contemporary    French  writer,  and   to  Spenser,  the 

M  N    2 


548  SPENSER  Lect.  Xn. 

author  of  the  Faery  Queene,  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  and  other 
minor  works. 

The  principal  poem  of  Du  Bartas,  which  is  a  history  of  the 
Creation,  was  written  in  a  sufficiently  inflated  style ;  but  this 
was  exaggerated  by  Sylvester,  who  added  many  peculiarities  of 
his  own,  such,  among  others,  as  compound,  or  rather  agglutinated, 
words  made  up  of  half  a  dozen  radicals.*  Its  poetical  merit  is 
slender,  but  the  translation  is  not  without  philological  interest, 
because  it  contains  a  considerable  number  of  words  and  forms, 
of  which  examples  are  hardly  to  be  met  with  elsewhere,  and 
there  are  passages  which  serve  as  commentaries  and  explanations 
of  obscure  expression's  in  Shakespeare,  and  other  dramatic 
authors  of  the  time.  It  is,  however,  difficult  to  understand  how 
an  age  that  produced  a  Shakespeare  could  bestow  such  un- 
bounded applause  on  a  Du  Bartas  and  a  Sylvester. 

Spenser  was  reproached  in  his  own  time  with  an  excess  of 
archaisms;  but  the  real  fault  of  his  diction  lies  rather  in  the 
use  of  forms  and  expressions  which  had  become  obsolete  because 
they  deserved  to  perish,  for  which  no  good  authority  could  be 
cited,  and  which  were,  probably,  unauthorized  coinages  of  the 
inferior  poets  from  whom  Spenser  took  them,  or  in  many  cases 
perhaps  licenses  of  his  own.  In  the  employment  of  words  of 
these  classes,  he  is  often  far  from  happy,  but  in  the  mastery  of 
the  true  English  of  his  time,  in  acute  sensibility  of  ear  and 
exquisite  skill  in  the  musical  arrangement  of  words,  he  has  no 
superior  in  the  whole  compass  of  English  literature. 

It  does  not  come  within  my  plan  to  criticise  the  allegory  of 
the  Faery  Queene,  and  indeed  he  must  be  a  superstitious  critic, 
whom  the  defects  of  the  plot,  and  its  allegorical  character,  deter 
from  enjoying  the  endless  beauties  of  detail  with  which  this 
most  charming  poem  overflows. 

The  most  striking  peculiarity  of  Spenser's  diction  is  analogous 
to  that  which  I  have  before  mentioned  as  one  of  Chaucer's 
greatest  merits  —  a  rare  felicity  in  verbal  combinations  —  and  in 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  ix.  p.  204. 


Lect.  XII.  bacon's  essays  549 

Spenser  it  chiefly  consists  in  a  very  nice  sense  of  congruity  in 
the  choice  and  application  of  epithets.  His  adjectives  not  only 
qualify  the  noun,  but  they  are  so  adapted  to  it,  that  they 
heighten  or  intensify  its  appropriate  meaning ;  and  they  are 
often  used  with  a  reference  to  the  radical  sense  of  the  noun, 
which  shows  that  Spenser  knew  how  to  press  even  etymology 
into  use  as  a  means  of  the  embellishment  of  poetical  diction. 

The  Faery  Queene  is  at  present  more  studied,  I  believe,  than 
it  was  a  century  since ;  but  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  which  is 
less  familiarly  known,  is  full  of  most  exquisite  poetry,  and  the 
minor  works  of  Spenser  are  scarcely  less  interesting  to  the 
reader  of  taste,  and  to  the  philologist,  than  his  great  allegorical 
epic. 

Most  of  the  works  of  Lord  Bacon  belong  to  the  following 
century,  and  therefore  do  not  come  within  the  period  to  which 
our  inquiries  are  limited ;  but  Bacon's  most  popular  and  most 
immediately  influential  production,  his  Essays,  appeared  in 
1596,  and  there  is  scarcely  a  volume  in  the  whole  prose  litera- 
ture of  England,  which  is,  more  emphatically,  at  once  a  product 
of  the  English  intellect,  and  an  agency  in  the  history  of  English 
practical  ethics.  The  style  of  the  Essays  is  very  attractive, 
though  never  pedantically  exact,  and  often  even  negligent,  in 
its  observance  of  the  rules  of  grammatical  concord  and  regimen ; 
but  though  many  Latinized  words  are  introduced,  even  its 
solecisms  are  English,  and  it  is,  in  all  probability,  a  fair  picture 
of  the  language- used  at  that  time  by  men  of  the  highest  culture, 
in  the  conversational  discussion  of  questions  of  practical  philo- 
sophy, or  what  the  Grermans  call  luorld-wisdom.  It  is  didactic 
in  character,  and  though  it  offered  nothing  new  to  the  English 
heart,  it  revealed  much  to  the  English  consciousness,  of  that 
day.  It  is  a  formulating  of  the  living  ethics  and  social  opinions 
of  the  cultivated  Briton  of  Elizabeth's  age,  a  distinct  expression 
of  sentiments  and  of  principles  which  the  nation  had  been 
trained  to  act  upon,  though  most  often  no  doubt  unconsciously ; 
and  its   immediate  success  was    owinof  to  its  immediate  and 


550  ENGLISH   GRAMMAES  Lect.  XI  L 

universal  recognition  as  an  embodiment  of  the  national  law  of 
life,  which  all  had  felt,  but  none  had  yet  presented  to  the  mind 
in  a  recorded  objective  form. 

We  have  now  followed  the  great  current  of  the  English 
speech  to  near  the  point  where  we  propose  to  terminate  our 
investigations ;  but  there  are  several  tributaries  and  sources  of 
its  philological  improvement,  which  require  a  somewhat  detailed 
examination  before  our  survey  can  be  said  to  be  approximately 
complete. 

The  revival  of  the  study  of  classical  literature,  after  a  short 
suspension,  and  the  impulse  which  had  been  given  to  modern 
philology  by  the  publication  of  Palsgrave's  French  Grammar, 
led  to  the  production  of  a  considerable  number  of  English 
grammars.  These  have  now  become  exceedingly  rare,  and  are 
almost  forgotten.  So  far  as  I  can  judge  from  the  few  I  have 
seen,  the  writers,  misled  by  their  partiality  for  the  ancient 
languages  and  literature,  occupied  themselves  less  with  inquiry 
into  the  facts  and  principles  of  English  philology,  than  with 
speculations  upon  improvements  which  might  be  introduced 
into  the  syntax  and  orthography  of  their  native  speech.  They 
are  seldom  to  be  relied  upon  as  evidence  with  regard  to  the 
actual  practice  of  the  best  native  writers,  and  still  less,  as  to  the 
true  theory  of  the  English  tongue.  The  great  authors  of  the 
fourteenth  and  earlier  centuries  were  little  studied,  Anglo-Saxon 
was  forgotten,  and  the  cognate  languages  of  Germany  and  the 
North  were  almost  unknown.  Hence  these  treatises,  instead  of 
being,  as  all  grammars  ought  to  be,  chiefly  historical,  are  specu- 
lative, and  designed  to  effect  a  reform  or  re-construction  of  the 
language.  Even  Ben  Jonson's  grammar  —  which  is  known  to 
us  only  in  a  sketch  or  abridgment,  the  manuscript  of  the  com- 
plete work  having  been  destroyed  by  fire  —  though  a  learned 
and  able  production,  is,  in  many  particulars,  not  sustained  by 
the  practice  of  good  authors  or  even  by  his  own.* 

In  one  respect,  however,  these  old  grammars  are  interesting, 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture  v.  p.  108. 


LECr.  XII.  CBITICISM   AND   THEORY  551 

if  not  harmonious  and  intelligible  enough  to  be  really  instruc- 
tive. I  refer  to  their  theories  of  orthography  and  pronunciation, 
which  are  curious  and  often  ingenious.  But  phonology  was  not 
then  known  as  a  science,  the  radical  sounds  had  not  yet  been 
analyzed,  and  the  writers  were  generally  ignorant  of  the  orthoepy 
of  the  Grothic  languages.  Besides  this,  the  pronunciation  of 
English  was  strangely  discordant  in  different  shires,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  reconcile  these  orthoepists  with  each  other  or  with 
themselves.* 

Many  eminent  native  scholars,  such  for  example  as  Ascham, 
systematically  decried  the  English  language  as  a  barbarous 
jargon  incapable  of  polish  or  refinement,  and  unfit  to  be  the 
vehicle  of  the  inspirations  of  poetry,  or  of  elegant  literature  in 
prose.  Sidney,  much  to  his  honour,  defends  the  capacities  of 
the  English  tongue  for  the  highest  culture,  and  it  is  a  striking 
proof  of  his  philological  insight,  that  he  was  among  the  first  of 
modern  scholars  to  perceive  the  advantage  of  an  uninflected 
structure,  and  of  a  syntax  founded  directly  on  the  logical,  not 
the  formal,  relation  of  words.f 

Though  Ascham  was  theoretically  opposed  to  the  employment 
of  English  for  literary  purposes,  or  even  in  discussing  the  simple 
and  popular  subject  of  archery,  yet  he  showed  no  inconsiderable 
power  in  the  use  of  it,  and  his  Schoolmaster,  as  well  as  his  other 
English  writings,  were  highly  useful  in  his  time,  and  were,  in 
all  respects,  important  contributions  to  the  literature  of  that  age. 

Artistic  theory  and  criticism  have  been  plants  of  slow  growth 
in  English  literature.  As  I  have  said  in  relation  to  morals,  the 
Englishman,  in  every  branch  of  mental  as  well  as  of  physical 
effort,  inclines  to  action  rather  than  to  speculation.  He  trusts 
to  his  instincts  and  his  common  sense  to  guide  him,  and  leaves 
it  to  others  to  philosophise  upon  the  organic  principles  which 

*  See  First  Series,  Lecture,  xxii. 

t  For  the  opinions  of  Ascham  on  the  English  language,  and  for  those  of 
other  scholars  of  his  and  the  immediately  preceding  centuries,  see  First  Series, 
Lecture  xxi.  pp.  444,  445  j  for  those  of  Sidney,  see  same  volume,  Lecture  iv. 
p.  88. 


552  CRITICISM   AND   THEORY  Lect.  XII. 

have  detej-mined  the  shape  and  character  of  his  productions. 
The  age  of  Elizabeth,  however,  gave  birth  to  some  works  in 
critical  and  artistical  theory.  One  of  the  most  conspicuous  of 
these  is  Puttenham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  first  published  in 
1589.  It  is,  as  the  author  expresses  it,  'Contriued  into  three 
Bookes :  The  first  of  Poets  and  Poesie,  the  second  of  Propor- 
tion, the  third  of  Ornament.'  This  treatise  shows  some  learning 
and  some  observation,  but  no  very  accurate  critical  appreciation 
of  the  authors  it  attempts  to  characterise.  As  to  the  more  con- 
spicuous ornaments  of  old  English  literature,  it  is  true,  posterity 
has  confirmed  many  of  Puttenham's  judgments,  at  least  as  to 
the  relative  rank  of  the  authors,  though  not  always  for  his 
reasons.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  speaks  of  the  dull  rhyming 
chronicler,  Harding,  as  'a  Poet  Epick  or  Historicall,'  who 
'handled  himselfe  well  according  to  the  time  and  maner  of 
his  subiect;'  he  extravagantly  commends  many  of  his  now 
forgotten  contemporaries,  and  concludes  his  meagre  list  of  those 
*who  in  any  age  haue  bene  the  most  commended  writers  in 
oure  English  Poesie,'  with  this  *  censure'  upon  Queen  Elizabeth : 
'But  last  in  recitall  and  first  in  degree  is  the  Queene,  our 
soueraigne  Lady,  whose  learned,  delicate,  noble  Muse,  easily 
surmounteth  all  the  rest  that  haue  writte  before  her  time  or 
since,  for  sence,  sweetnesse  and  subtillitie,  be  it  in  Ode,  Elegie, 
Epigram,  or  any  other  kinde  of  poeme,  Heroick  or  Lyricke, 
wherein  it  shall  please  her  Maiestie  to  employ  her  penne,  euen 
by  as  much  oddes  as  her  owne  excellent  estate  and  degree 
exceedeth  all  the  rest  of  her  most  humble  vassalls.' 

The  most  valuable  part  of  this  work  is  that  which  treats  of 
the  formal  requisites  of  poetry,  and  especially  of  versification, 
because  it  throws  a  good  deal  of  light  on  the  pronunciation  of 
that  age  —  a  subject  respecting  which  we  are  far  from  being 
well  informed.  When,  however,  we  compare  these  chapters  of 
Puttenham  with  what  had  long  before  been  accomplished  in 
the  Eomance  languages  in  the  same  branch  of  criticism — for 
example,  with  the  Provenjal  Flors  del  Gay  Saber,  estier  dichas 


Lect.  XII.  TEANSLATIONS  553 

Las  Leys  d'  Amors,  of  the  fourteenth  century,  published  by 
Gratien  Arnoult — we  must  admit  that  the  technicalities  of  the 
poetic  art,  if  instinctively  practised,  had  been  as  yet  but  imper- 
fectly discussed  in  England. 

The  Reformation,  as  has  been  before  observed,  had  occasioned 
the  translation  of  many  moral  and  religious  works  from  the 
Latin,  and  thereby  enriched  the  theological  dialect.  Some 
essays  in  the  translation  of  secular  Latin  and  Grreek  authors 
were  made  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  but  the 
reaction  against  classical  learning,  which  succeeded  to  the  im- 
pulse given  to  it  by  the  Reformation,  checked  this  branch  of 
literary  effort,  and  not  many  further  attempts  were  made  in  it 
until  the  study  of  Grreek  and  Latin  came  again  into  vogue  after 
the  accession  of  Elizabeth.  Versions  of  ancient  authors,  Latin 
especially,  were  now  made  in  great  numbers,  and  there  are  few 
writers  of  eminence  in  the  literature  of  Rome,  not  many  in  that 
of  Grreece,  who  did  not  receive  an  English  dress. 

Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said,  by  Johnson  and 
others,  upon  the  influence  of  translation  in  corrupting  language, 
I  believe  there  is  no  one  source  of  improvement  to  which 
English  is  so  much  indebted,  as  to  the  versions  of  classical 
authors  which  were  executed  between  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century  and  the  death  of  Elizabeth.  English,  though 
much  enriched,  was  still  wanting  in  copiousness,  and  there 
existed  no  such  acquaintance  with  Anglo-Saxon  that  any  of  its 
defects  could  be  supplied  from  that  source.  Hence  Latin  and 
French  were  the  only  fountains  from  which  scholars  could  draw, 
and  translations  from  those  languages  not  only  introduced  new 
words,  but  what  was  scarcely  less  important,  new  combinations 
of  words  for  expressing  complex  ideas. 

They  performed  still  another  very  signal  service,  which  has 
been  almost  wholly  overlooked  by  writers  who  have  treated  of 
the  philological  history  of  England.  The  variety  of  subjects 
discussed,  and  of  styles  employed  by  the  classical  writers, 
obliged  the  translators,  not  only  to  borrow  or  to  coin  new  words, 


554  TKANSLATIONS  Lect.  XII. 

where  no  native  terms  existed  for  the  expression  of  the  thoughts 
they  sought  to  render,  but  to  seek,  in  English  literature  new 
and  old,  in  popular  speech,  and  in  the  nomenclature  of  the 
liberal  and  the  mechanical  arts,  domestic  equivalents  for  a  vast 
multitude  of  words,  whose  places  could  not  be  supplied  by  the 
transference  of  Latin  terms,  because  these  would  have  been 
unintelligible.  Hence  these  translations  did  not  merely  enrich 
the  language  by  an  infusion  of  new  philological  elements,  but 
they  gathered  up,  recorded,  and  thus  preserved  for  future  study 
and  use,  the  whole  extent  of  the  vocabulary  then  known  to  the 
English  nation.  This  process  is  particularly  observable  in  the 
old  versions  of  the  more  encyclopedic  authors,  such  as  Plutarch's 
Lives  and  his  Morals.  The  Lives  were  translated  by  North, 
about  the  middle  of  ,Elizabeth's  reign,  from  the  admirable 
French  version  of  Amyot,  and  though  occasional  errors  in 
rendering  were  committed  by  both  Amyot  and  North,  the 
style  of  Plutarch  is  upon  the  whole  more  faithfully  repre- 
sented by  this  old  and  quaint  version  than  by  any  of  the 
later  attempts. 

Pliny's  Natural  History  and  Plutarch's  Morals  came  later. 
They,  as  well  as  Livy  and  some  other  voluminous  Latin  works, 
were  translated  by  Philemon  Holland,  at  about  the  close  of 
Elizabeth's  reign,  and  they  constitute  an  inexhaustible  mine 
of  linguistic  wealth.  Pliny's  Natural  History  was  designed  as 
a  complete  treatise  upon  all  the  branches  of  material  knowledge 
known  to  the  ancient  world.  The  learning  of  the  G-reeks  and 
Eomans  on  these  subjects  was  very  little  inferior  to  that  of 
England  in  Elizabeth's  time,  and  few  branches  of  science,  or  of 
practical  art,  were  at  all  cultivated  at  that  period,  which  are 
not  represented  and  fully  discussed  by  Pliny.  Hence  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Natural  History  required  the  employment  of  the 
entire  English  nomenclature  of  physical  learning  and  of  mecha- 
nical craft.  Holland's  version  exhausts  the  technical  vocabulary 
of  his  age,  thus  gathering,  in  a  single  volume,  the  whole  of  the 
material  side  of  the  English  language,  and  constituting  the 


I.ECT.  XII.  TRANSLATIONS  .  556 

most  valuable  and  comprehensive  source  of  information  upon 
old  English  names  of  processes,  of  things,  and  of  the  sensuous 
properties  of  things,  which  exists  in  a  collected  form. 

The  most  celebrated  translators  of  Latin  verse  in  Elizabeth's 
time  were  Phaer  or  Phaier,  and  Grolding.  The  former  ^tra- 
duced,' as  some  old  writers  have  it,  the  first  nine  books  of 
Virgil's  ^neid,  and  the  latter,  with  more  ability,  translated 
Ovid's  Metamorphoses  and  many  other  Latin  works,  in  prose  as 
well  as  verse.  Of  Master  Phaer,  I  suppose  my  readers  will 
not  care  to  know  more,  after  perusing  Virgil's  account  of  the 
building  of  Carthage  by  the  Moors  under  Queen  Dido,  as 
Englished  by  him : — 

The  Moores  with  courage  went  to  worke, 

some  vnder  burdens  grones  : 
Some  at  the  wals  and  towrs  with  hands 

were  tumbling  vp  the  stones. 
Some  measurd  out  a  place  to  build 

their  mansion  house  within  : 
Some  lawes  and  officers  to  make 

in  parlment  did  begin. 
An  other  had  an  hauen  cast, 

and  deepe  they  trench  the  ground, 
Some  other  for  the  games  and  plaies 

a  statelie  place  had  found. 
And  pillers  great  they  cut  for  kings, 

to  garnish  foorth  their  wals, 
And  like  as  bees  among  the  flours, 

when  fresh  the  summer  fals, 
In  shine  of  sunne  applie  their  worke, 

when  growne  is  vp  their  yoong  : 
Or  when  their  hiues  they  gin  to  stop, 

and  honie  sweet  is  sproong, 
That  all  their  caues  and  cellars  close 

with  dulcet  liquor  fils, 
Some  doo  outlade,  some  other  bring 

the  stuiFe  with  readie  wils. 
Sometime  they  ioine,  and  all  at  once 

doo  from  their  mangers  fet 


556  TRANSLATIONS  Lect.  XIL 

The  slothful  drones,  that  would  consume, 

and  nought  would  doo  to  get. 
The  worke  it  heats,  the  honie  smels, 

of  flours  and  thime  ywet,  &c.  &c. 

Grolding's  Ovid  is  a  spirited  and  creditable  work,  and  at  that 
date,  1567,  the  condition  of  the  language  would  hardly  have 
admitted  of  a  better.  Warton  bestows  well-merited  praise  on 
his  version  of  the  transformation  of  Athamas  and  Ino  in  the 
fourth  book  of  the  Metamorphoses,  and  there  are  many  other 
passages  riot  inferior  in  excellence. 

I  cannot  say  so  much  in  favour  of  Grolding's  Epistle  or  Dedi- 
cation—  a  summary,  or  rhymed  table  of  contents,  of  his 
author — or  of  his  Preface  to  the  Eeader,  supposed  by  Warton 
to  have  been  designed  for  the  comfort  of  the  '  weaker  Puritans,' 
or  ^  simple  sort,'  as  Grolding  calls  them,  who  might  be  scandal- 
ised at  the  heathen  profanity  and  idolatry  of  Ovid.  If  the 
Puritans  of  that  day  thought  Ovid  forbidden  fruit,  and  were 
'  simple '  enough  to  be  converted  to  a  belief  in  the  lawfulness  of 
reading  him  by  no  better  arguments  than  Golding's,  they  must 
have  been  '  weak '  indeed ;  and  I  suspect  stout  John  Knox  — 
Golding's  contemporary,  and  perhaps  his  countryman* — would 
have  required  stronger  logic  to  persuade  him  of  the  innocence 
of  anything  he  held  to  be  wrong. 

During  the  period  we  are  considering,  the  English  language 
received  numerous  and  important  accessions  from  travel  and 
commerce,  which  were  enlarging  with  the  rapid  progress  of 
geographical  discovery.  Many  descriptive  accounts  of  foreign 
countries  were  printed,  and  the  public  curiosity  welcomed  with 
avidity  narratives  of  adventure  and  observation  in  distant  lands. 
Foreigners  from  remote  nations  visited  England,  new  wares 
were  introduced,  the  tropical  world  had  been  recently  opened 

*  I  do  not  know  upon  how  good  authority  "Warton  pronounces  Grolding  to  have 
been  a  native  of  London.  The  epistle  is  dated  at  *  Barwicke,'  and  in  my  copy, 
London,  1595,  a  manuscript  note,  in  an  old  hand,  states  that  Golding  was  *  a 
Scot.' 


Lf.ct.  XII.  TRAVEL   AND    COMMERCE  557 

to  Christian  observation,  and  new  stores  of  natural  knowledge 
flowed  in  from  regions  which  had  been  unknown  to  Europe 
from  the  commencement  of  the  historical  era. 

The  Fardle  of  Facions,  a  description  of  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  different  nations  of  the  world,  translated  from 
the  Latin  and  printed  about  the  year  1550,  is  one  of  the  earliest 
and  most  curious  books  of  this  class,  and,  for  its  extent,  philo- 
logically  one  of  the  most  interesting.  It  was  soon  succeeded  by 
more  voluminous  works  in  the  same  department,  among  which 
the  most  valuable  are,  the  Decades  of  Peter  Martyr,  the  travels 
of  Vertomannus  in  the  East,  and  some  other  works  which  were 
reprinted  about  fifty  years  ago  in  a  quarto  volume  intended  as 
a  supplement  to  Hakluyt.  But  these  are  all  surpassed  in  im- 
portance by  Hakluyt's  collection  of  voyages  and  travels,  first 
published  in  1589,  which  not  only  exhibits  a  great  range  of 
vocabulary,  but  contains  many  narratives  of  no  small  degree  of 
literary  merit. 

It  is  perhaps  to  the  excited  curiosity  produced  by  these  works 
that  we  are  to  ascribe,  in  part  at  least,  the  progress  which  the 
study  of  the  Oriental  languages,  the  Arabic  especially,  made  in 
England  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  knowledge  of  Arabic  pro- 
moted that  of  the  cognate  Hebrew,  and  the  effects  of  this  learn- 
ing are  visible  in  the  revision  of  the  English  Scriptures  by  the 
translators  appointed  by  King  James,  several  of  v^hom  possessed 
an  amount  of  Oriental  learning  rare  in  later  ages  of  English 
literary  history. 

There  are  also  certain  other  branches  of  knowledge,  or,  at 
least,  of  study,  which,  though  specialities,  nevertheless  exerted 
a  considerable  influence  upon  the  general  language  both  of 
common  life  and  of  books.  I  refer  to  the  nomenclature  of 
natural  science,  of  alchemy,  of  astrology,  and  of  the  professions 
of  medicine  and  the  law.  These,  indeed,  are  not  generally 
regarded  as  embraced  in  the  term  literature,  but  abundant 
traces  of  them  are  found  in  literature ;  for  it  has  been  seriously 
argued,  from  Shakespeare's  familiarity  with  legal  terms,  that 


558  SCIENTIFIC   STUDIES  Lect.  XII. 

he  must  have  been  an  attorney's  clerk,  at  the  least,  if  not  a 
practising  lawyer,  just  as  similar  evidence  has  been  cited  to 
prove  that  he  was  a  good  classical  scholar  and  an  experienced 
navigator,  and,  as^  it  might  be,  to  show  that  he  was  a  medical 
man,  because  he  makes  one  of  his  characters  say  that '  parmacity 
was  good  for  an  inward  bruise.' 

In  the  sixteenth  century  speculation  was  rife  in  all  the 
pursuits  I  have  mentioned ;  and  by  virtue  of  that  common 
bond  which  has  long  been  recognised  as  existing  between  all 
knowledges,  and  more  especially  in  consequence  of  the  change- 
fulness  of  this  restless  modern  life  of  ours,  there  is  a  perpetual 
intermingling  and  amalgamation  of  all  classes,  professions,  and 
dialects.  The  result  is  that  the  technical  words  of  every  science, 
every  art,  are  continually  wandering  out  from  the  laboratory 
and  the  workshop,  and  incorporating  themselves  into  the  com- 
mon speech  of  the  ignorant  as  well  as  of  the  learned ;  and  there 
is  scarcely  a  human  pursuit  from  which  the  every-day  language 
of  England  has  not  borrowed,  appropriated,  and  generalised 
more  or  fewer  terms  of  art. 

Although,  as  I  have  often  remarked,  the  dialect  of  theology 
was  a  special  nomenclature,  yet  the  fact,  that  theology  was 
studied  as  a  branch  of  general  education,  made  its  dialect  more 
familiar  than  that  of  any  other  single  art  or  science,  and 
through  the  sixteenth  century  it  maintained  its  relative  impor- 
tance as  an  elevating,  refining,  and  at  the  same  time  enriching, 
and  essentially  progressive  influence.  Besides  a  vast  mass  of 
strictly  professional  w^orks  in  the  department  of  theology,  the 
last  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  produced  numerous  editions 
and  revisals  of  the  English  Scriptures,  the  universal  circulation 
of  which  influenced  the  speech  of  England  in  a  variety  of  ways, 
but  most  especially  in  counteracting  the  tendency  of  secular 
literature  to  the  adoption  of  a  Latinised  phraseology  and  syntax; 
for  all  the  Protestant  English  versions  of  the  Bible  are  ulti- 
mately founded  on  Wycliffe,  and  are  all  remarkable  for  the 
purity  of  their  Anglo-Saxon  diction. 


Lect.  XII.  '  THEOLOGY  559 

Next  in  importance  to  the  translations  of  the  Bible  as  a  con- 
servative influence  in  English  philology,  we  must  rank  the 
liturgy  of  the  Anglican  church,  which,  in  its  various  forms, 
belongs  to  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  and  Elizabeth.  The  diction 
of  this  ritual  is  as  conspicuous  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  character  of 
the  style  as  the  English  Bibles,  and  the  daily  repetition  of  por- 
tions of  its  contents,  by  almost  the  whole  population  of  England, 
could  not  but  have  tiad  a  powerful  effect  in  fashioning  the  speech, 
and  tincturing  the  written  dialect,  of  the  English  people. 

The  diction  of  theologj.  perhaps  I  should  say  of  English 
prose,  reached  its  highest  point  of  excellence  in  the  works  of 
Hooker,  the  first  four  books  of  whose  Ecclesiastical  Polity  were 
printed  in  1594,  the  fifth  in  1597.  The  style  of  Hooker  is 
sometimes  unnecessarily  involved  and  obscure,  and  he  is  fond  of 
Latinisms,  both  in  words  and  in  the  arrangement  of  his  periods. 
One  of  the  latter  class  is  the  inversion  by  which  the  participle 
in  the  compound  tenses,  and  the  adjective,  precede  the  nomina- 
tive, as,  for  example :  '  Brought  already  we  are  even  to  that 
estate  which  Gregorie  Nazianzen  mournefullie  describeth ; ' 
'  able  we  are  not  to  deny,  but  that  we  have  deserved  the  hatred 
of  the  heathen; '  'Dangerous  it  were  for  the  feeble  braine  of  man 
to  wade  far  re  into  the  doings  of  the  most  High.'  This  is  the 
usual  Latin  order  of  arrangement,  and  it  was  a  favorite  construc- 
tion with  all  the  translators  of  the  period  we  are  considering. 
Hooker  is  perhaps  the  first  English  prose  writer  who  exhibits 
philosophical  precision  and  uniformity  in  the  use  of  words,  and 
this  is  the  peculiarity  of  his  style  which  gives  it  its  greatest 
philological  value.  This  nicety  of  discrimination  he  extends 
even  to  particles,  a  remarkable  instance  of  which  is  the  distinc- 
tion between  sith  and  sithence,  or  since,  the  former  being  always 
an  illative  or  argumentative  word,  the  latter  simply  narrative, 
indicating  time  after.  I  cannot  say  that  this  distinction  was 
invented  by  Hooker,  but  it  certainly  is  not  much  older  than  his 
time,  though  a  tendency  towards  it  begins  to  be  observable  soon 
after  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.     Hooker  is,  so  far  as 


560  HOOKER  Lect.  XII. 

I  know,  the  only  important  English  author  who  constantly 
observes  this  very  important  logical  difference,  though,  indeed, 
it  is  not  often  overlooked  by  his  contemporaries,  Spenser  and 
Sylvester.  Hooker's  periods  are  sometimes  cumbrous  and  in- 
volved, partly  from  the  influence  of  his  devotion  to  Latin  theo- 
logical literature,  and  partly  from  his  desire  to  accompany  his 
general  propositions  with  the  conditions,  qualifications,  and 
limitations  belonging  to  them ;  but  he  has  many  passages  of  the 
most  admirable  rhetorical  beauty,  and  of  a  musical  flow  not  less 
melodious  than  that  of  the  periods  of  Milton. 

I  have  observed  that  no  great  English  writer  has  ever  been 
wholly  able  to  suppress  the  quality  of  humour.  Hooker  would 
be  claimed  as  an  exception,  and  in  truth  he  is  one  of  the  gravest 
of  authors,  but  one  cannot  but  suspect  that  a  smile  is  lurking 
under  some  of  the  illustrations  which  accompany  his  most  serious 
arguments.  Thus,  having  declared  that  Grod  works  nothing 
without  cause,  he  instances  the  creation  of  woman,  which  he 
intimates  was  an  afterthought,  and  declares  that  God's  '  will  had 
never  inclined  '  to  perform  it,  *  but  that  he  saw  it  could  not  be 
wel,  if  she  were  not  created.'  In  this,  he  seems  to  have  meant 
a  half  jocose  expression  of  the  same  sentiments  to  which  John 
Knox  had,  not  many  years  before,  given  such  passionate  utter- 
rance  in  his  ungenerous,  but  very  eloquent  First  Blast  of  the 
Trumpet  against  the  monstrous  Regiment  of  Women. 

Hooker's  works  are  a  chain  from  which  it  is  hard  to  detach  a 
link,  without  a  fracture.  The  continuity  of  his  style  is  one  of 
its  merits,  and  no  very  good  idea  of  his,  manner  is  to  be  gained 
from  single  paragraphs.  There  are  two  or  three  regular  stock 
quotations  from  Hooker,  which  are  always  produced  as  samples, 
when  his  literary  merits  are  under  discussion,  and  they  are 
therefore  somewhat  familiar  to  the  '  reading  public ; '  but  I  am 
afraid  there  are  many  D.D.s,  whose  only  knowledge  of  this 
great  writer  is  derived  from  those  passages.  I  can  afford  space 
only  for  the  second  chapter  of  the  first  book  of  the '  Ecclesiasticall 
Politic,'  which  I  print  from  the  rare  edition  of  1594. 


Lect.  xii.  hooker  561 

All  things  that  are  haue  some  operation  not  violent  or  casnall. 
Neither  doth  any  thing  eiier  begin  to  exercise  the  same  without  some 
foreconceaued  ende  for  which  it  worketh.  And  the  ende  which  it 
worketh  for  is  not  obteined,  vnlesse  the  Avorke  be  also  fit  to  obteine  it 
by.  For  vnto  euery  ende  euery  operation  will  not  serue.  That  which 
doth  assigne  vnto  each  thing  the  kinde,  that  which  doth  moderate  the 
force  and  power,  that  which  doth  appoint  the  forme  and  measure  of 
working,  the  same  we  tearme  a  Lawe.  So  that  no  certaine  end  could 
euer  be  attained,  vnlesse  the  actions  whereby  it  is  attained  were  regular, 
that  is  to  say,  made  suteable  fit  and  correspondent  vnto  their  end,  by 
some  Canon  rule  or  lawe.  Which  thing  doth  first  take  place  in  the 
workes  euen  of  God  himselfe.  All  things  therefore  do  worke  after  a 
sort  according  to  lawe  :  all  other  things  according  to  a  lawe,  whereof 
some  superiour,  vnto  whome  they  are  subiect,  is  author ;  only  the 
workes  and  operations  of  God  haue  him  both  for  their  worker,  and 
for  the  lawe  whereby  they  are  wrought.  The  being  of  God  is  a  kinde 
of  lawe  to  his  working  :  for  that  perfection  which  God  is,  geueth 
perfection  to  that  he  doth.  Those  naturall,  necessary,  and  internal 
operations  of  God,  the  generation  of  the  Sonne,  the  proceeding  of  the 
Spirit,  are  without  the  compasse  of  my  present  intent :  which  is  to 
touch  only  such  operations  as  haue  their  beginning  and  being  by  a 
voluntarie  purpose,  wherewith  God  hath  eternally  decreed  when  and 
howe  they  should  be.  Which  eternall  decree  is  that  wee  tearme  an 
eternall  lawe.  Dangerous  it  were  for  the  feeble  braine  of  man  to  wade 
farre  into  the  doings  of  the  most  High,  whome  although  to  knowe  be 
life,  and  ioy  to  make  mention  'of  his  name  :  yet  our  soundest  know- 
ledge is  to  know  that  we  know  him  not  as  in  deed  he  is,  neither  can 
know  him  :  and  our  safest  eloquence  concerning  him  is  our  silence, 
when  we  confesse  without  confession  that  his  glory  is  inexplicable,  his 
greatnes  aboue  our  capacitie  and  reach.  He  is  aboue,  and  we  vpon 
earth,  therefore  it  behoueth  our  wordes  to  be  warie  and  fewe.  Our 
God  is  one,  or  rather  verie  onenesse,  and  meere  vnitie,  hauing  nothing 
but  it  selfe  in  it  selfe,  and  not  consisting  (as  all  things  do  besides  God) 
of  many  things.  la  which  essential  vnitie  of  God  a  Trinitie  personall 
neuerthelesse  subsisteth  after  a  maner  far  exceeding  the  possibilitie 
of  man's  conceipt.  The  works  which  outwardly  are  of  God,  they  are 
in  such  sort  of  him  being  one,  that  each  person  hath  in  them  somewhat 
peculiar  and  proper.  For  being  three,  and  they  all  subsisting  in  the 
essence  of  one  deitie ;  from  the  Father,  by  the  Sonne,  through  the 
Spirit  all  things  are.  That  which  the  Sonne  doth  heare  of  the  Father, 
and  which  the  Spirit  doth  receiue  of  the  Father  &  the  Sonne,  the  same 

o  o 


562  HOOKER  Lect.  XIL 

we  haue  at  the  huds  of  the  Spirit  as  being  the  last,  and  therfore 
tlie  neerest  vnto  vs  in  order,  although  in  power  the  same  with  the 
second  and  the  first.  The  wise  and  learned  among  the  verie  Hea- 
thens themselues,  haue  all  acknowledged  some  first  cause,  whereupon 
originallie  the  being  of  all  things  dependeth.  Neither  haue  they 
otherwise  spoken  of  that  cause,  then  as  an  Agent,  which  knowing 
loliat  and  ivhy  it  worketh  obserueth  in  working  a  most  exact  order 
or  lawe.  Thus  much  is  signified  by  that  which  Homer  mentioneth, 
A<oc  S'ireXe/ero  fiovXrj.  Thus  much  acknowledged  by  Mercurius  Tris- 
megist.  Tov  iravTa  noayiov  eTroirjaev  6  Brjfxinvpydg  oh  'yepaiv  uWd  Xdyw. 
Thus  much  cofest  by  Anaxago.  and  Plato,  terming  the  maker  of  the 
world  an  Intellectual  worker.  Finallie  the  Stoikes,  although  imagining 
the  first  cause  of  all  things  to  be  fire,  held  neuerthelesse  that  the  same 
fire  hauing  arte,  did  olio  i-)ahi'(tiv  eirl  ytviaei  Kocr/jiov.  They  all  confesse 
therfore  in  the  working  of  that  first  cause,  that  counsell  is  vsed,  reason 
followed,  a  ivay  obserued,  that  is  to  say,  constant  order  and  law  is  kept, 
whereof  it  selfe  must  needs  be  author  vnto  it  selfe.  Otherwise  it 
should  haue  some  worthier  and  higher  to  direct  it,  and  so  could  not  it 
selfe  be  the  first.  Being  the  first,  it  can  haue  no  other  then  it  selfe  to 
be  the  author  of  that  law  which  it  willingly  worketh  by.  God  there- 
fore is  a  law  both  to  himselfe,  and  to  all  other  things  besides.  To 
himselfe  he  is  a  law  in  all  those  things,  whereof  our  Sauiour  speaketh, 
saying.  My  Father  worketh  as  yet,  so  I.  God  worketh  nothing  without 
cause.  All  those  things  which  are  done  by  him,  haue  some  ende  for 
which  they  are  done  :  and  the  ende  for  which  they  are  done,  is  a  reason 
of  his  will  to  do  them.  His  will  had  not  inclined  to  create  woman, 
but  that  he  saw  it  could  not  be  wel  if  she  were  not  created,  J^on  est 
bonwn,  It  is  not  good  man  should  he  alone.  Therefore  let  vs  make  an 
helper  for  him.  That  and  nothing  else  is  done  by  God,  which  to  leaue 
vndone  were  not  so  good.  If  therfore  it  be  demanded,  why  God 
hauing  power  and  habilitie  infinite,  th'  effects  notwithstading  of  that 
power  are  all  so  limited  as  we  see  they  are  :  the  reason  hereof  is  the 
end  which  he  hath  proposed,  and  the  lawe  whereby  his  wisedome  hath 
stinted  th'  effects  of  his  power  in  such  sort,  that  it  doth  not  worke 
infinitely  but  correspodently  vnto  that  end  for  which  it  worketh,  euen 
al  things  xP^o'''<^c,  in  most  decent  and  comely  sort,  all  things  in  measure^ 
number,  and  loaight.  The  generall  end  of  Gods  externall  working  is 
the  exercise  of  his  most  glorious  and  most  abundant  vertue :  Which 
abundance  doth  shew  it  selfe  in  varietie,  and  for  that  cause  this 
varietiti  is  oftentimes  in  Scripture  exprest  by  the  name  of  riches.  The 
Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  his  owne  sake.     Not  that  any  thing  is 


Lect.  XII.  HOOKER  563 

made  to  be  beneficiall  vnto  him,  but  all  things  for  him  to  shew  bene- 
ficence and  grace  in  them.  The  particular  drift  of  euery  acte  pro- 
ceeding externally  from  God,  we  are  not  able  to  discerne,  and  therefore 
cannot  alwaies  giue  the  proper  and  certaine  reason  of  his  works.  How- 
beit  vndoubtedly  a  proper  and  certaine  reason  there  is  of  euery  finite 
worke  of  God,  in  as  much  as  there  is  a  law  imposed  vpon  it ;  which  if 
there  were  not,  it  should  be  infinite  euen  as  the  worker  himselfe  is. 
They  erre  therefore  who  thinke  that  of  the  will  of  God  to  do  this  or 
that,  there  is  no  reason  besides  his  will.  Many  times  no  reason  knoAvne 
to  vs ;  but  that  there  is  no  reason  thereof,  I  iudge  it  most  vnreasonable 
to  imagine,  in  as  much  as  he  worketh  all  things  fcara  n'lv  flov\)]%'  rov 
SreXijjjLaroQ  civtov,  not  only  according  to  his  owne  will,  but  the  counsell 
of  his  owne  will.  And  Avhatsoeuer  is  done  with  counsell  or  wise  reso- 
lution, hath  of  necessitie  some  reason  why  it  should  be  done,  albeit 
that  reason  be  to  vs  in  some  things  so  secret,  that  it  forceth  the  wit  of 
man  to  stand,  as  the  blessed  Apostle  himself  doth,  amazed  thereat,  0 
the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdome  and  knowledge  of  God,  How 
vnsearchahle  are  his  iudgements,  ^c.  That  law  eternall  which  God 
himself  hath  made  to  himselfe,  and  thereby  worketh  all  things  wherof 
he  is  the  cause  and  author,  that  law  in  the  admirable  frame  wherof 
shineth  with  most  perfect  bewtie  the  countenance  of  that  wisedome 
which  hath  testified  concerning  her  self.  The  lord  possessed  me  in  the 
beginning  of  his  ivay,  euen  before  his  works  of  old,  I  ivas  set  vp,  4'C. 
That  law  which  hath  bene  the  patterne  to  make,  and  is  the  card  to  guide 
the  world  by ;  that  law  which  hath  bene  of  God,  and  with  God  euer- 
lastingly :  that  law  the  author  and  obseruer  whereof  is  one  only  God 
to  be  blessed  for  euer,  how  should  either  men  or  Angels  be  able  per- 
fectly to  behold  ?  The  booke  of  this  law  we  are  neither  able  nor 
worthie  to  open  and  looke  into.  That  little  thereof  which  we  darkly 
apprehend,  we  admire,  the  rest  with  religious  ignorance  we  humbly  and 
meekly  adore.  Seeing  therfore  that  according  to  this  law  he  worketh, 
of  whom,  through  whom.,  and  for  ivhom  are  all  things,  although  there 
seeme  vnto  vs  cofusion  and  disorder  in  th'  affaires  of  this  present 
world :  Tamen  quoniam  bonus  mundum  rector  temperat,  recte  fieri 
cuncta  ne  dubites,  Let  no  ma  doubt  but  that  euery  thing  is  well  done, 
because  the  world  is  ruled  by  so  good  a  guide,  as  transgresseth  not  his 
owne  law,  then  which  nothing  can  be  more  absolute,  perfect  &  iust. 
The  law  whereby  he  worketh,  is  eternall,  and  therefore  can  haue  no 
shew  or  cullor  of  mutabilitie  :  for  which  cause  a  part  of  that  law  being 
opened  in  the  promises  which  God  hath  made  (because  his  promises  are 
nothing  else  but  declarations  what  God  will  do  for  the  good  of  men) 

o  o  2 


564  DRAMATIC   DICTION  Lect.  XII. 

touching  those  promises  the  Apostle  hath  witnessed,  that  God  may  as 
possibly  deny  himselfe  and  not  be  God,  as  faile  to  performe  them.  And 
cocerning  the  counsel  of  God,  he  termeth  it  likewise  a  thing  vnchange- 
able,  the  counsell  of  God,  and  that  law  of  God  whereof  now  we  speake 
being  one.  Nor  is  the  freedom  of  the  wil  of  God  any  whit  abated,  let 
or  hindered  by  meanes  of  this,  because  the  imposition  of  this  law  vp5 
himself  is  his  own  free  and  volutary  act.  This  law  therfore  we  may 
name  eternall,  being  that  order  ivliich  God  before  all  ages  hath  set 
down  with  himselfe^  for  himselfe  to  do  all  things  hy. 

I  have  now  shown  how  the  vocabularies  of  many  branches  of 
English  literature  had  been  gradually  increased  in  copiousness, 
their  diction  refined  and  polished,  and  their  grammar  simplified ; 
but  there  is  still  one  department — and  that,  considered  simply 
in  its  literary  aspects,  the  highest — in  which  hitherto  compara- 
tively little  had  been  accomplished.  I  mean  that  modification 
of  the  colloquial  language  of  actual  life,  which  was  required  to 
fit  it  for  employment  in  the  scenic  representation  of  the  various 
phases  and  conditions  of  humanity,  as  they  are  conceived  and 
interpreted  by  the  great  masters  of  the  dramatic  art. 

In  popular  farces,  and  in  merely  occasional  theatrical 
pieces  intended  to  serve  a  special  temporary  purpose,  the  collo- 
quial language  of  the  day  may  properly  be  employed ;  but  in 
dramas  designed  for  permanent  existence,  the  diction  of  the 
dialogue  must  be  of  a  more  enduring  and  less  changeable  cha- 
racter than  the  speech  of  the  hour,  which  is  always  more 
coloured  by  fleeting  and  superficial  influences  than  is  usually 
supposed  by  those  who  have  not  made  the  actual  language  of 
life  a  study.* 

*  Every  generation,  every  year  almost,  has  its  pet  "words,  applications,  forms, 
and  combinations,  originating  now  in  some  accidental  circumstance,  now  in  some 
theory,  early  association,  habit,  or  caprice  of  a  favourite  writer,  which,  for  the 
time,  constitute  unsightly  excrescences  upon  the  body  of  the  speech,  but  finally 
drop  off  and  are  forgotten.  To  take  single  words :  it  is  difficult  at  this  moment 
to  find  a  page  in  a  popular  French  writer,  which  does  not  contain  the  word 
preoccuper,  or  some  of  its  derivatives.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  I 
must  instance  a  more  unfortunate  case.  The  epithet  lovely  can  fitly  be  used  only 
of  beings  capable  of  exciting,  by  their  moral  and  physical  perfections,  the  passion 


Lf.ct.  XII.  DRAMATIC   DICTION  565 

It  is  a  proof  of  the  acuteness  of  the  English  dramatists  who 
lived  a  little  before,  and  with,  Shakespeare,  that  they  perceived 
the  necessity  of  a  style  somewhat  removed  from  the  vernacular 
speech  of  their  time ;  but  it  is  also  a  proof  of  the  weakness  of 
their  judgment,  that,  instead  of  adopting  a  phraseology  which 
was  natural,  idiomatic,  and  permanent,  without  being  local  or 
vulgar,  they  invented  a  conventional  style  of  expression,  which 
not  only  never  was  used  in  real  society,  but  which  never  could 
be,  without  a  violation  of  the  laws  both  of  language  and  of 
thought.  The  dialect  of  tragedy  is  not  the  style  which  men  on 
the  stage  of  life,  influenced  as  they  are  by  temporary  and  acci- 
dental conditions  of  speech,  actually  use,  but  it  is  the  diction 
which,  according  to  the  permanent  and  essential  genius  of  the 
language,  and  the  supposed  moral  and  intellectual  categories  of 
the  personages,  constitutes  the  truest  and  most  precise  expres- 
sion of  the  thoughts  and  purposes  which  animate  them. 

Although  the  phraseology  which  the  earlier  English  play- 
wrights put  into  the  mouths  of  their  personages  is  in  a  high 
degree  unnatural  and  inappropriate,  yet  in  the  wide  variety  of 
their  characters,  and  of  the  circumstances  in  which  they  placed 
them,  they  not  unfrequently  unwittingly  strayed  into  a  fit  and 
expressive  style,  and  thus  there  was  gradually  accumulated  a 
fragmentary  and  scattered  store  of  material  for  a  copious  and 
multifarious  dramatic  diction. 

of  love,  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  reciprocating  it.  That  only  is  lovely  which  is 
both  loveable  and  loving.  In  the  affectation  and  exaggeration  which  so  often 
characterizes  the  phraseology  of  polite  society,  this  unhappy  word  was  seized 
upon  and  generalized  in  its  applieation,  audit  soon  became  the  one  epithet  of  com- 
mendation in  young  ladies'  seminaries  and  similar  circles,  where  it  was  and  is 
applied  indiscriminately  to  all  pleasing  material  objects,  from  a  piece  of  plum- 
cake  to  a  Gothic  cathedral.  Euskin  unluckily  adopted  this  school-girl  triviality, 
and,  by  the  popularity  of  his  writings,  has  made  it  almost  universal,  thereby 
degrading,  vulgarizing,  and  depriving  of  its  true  significance,  one  of  the  noblest 
words  in  the  English  language. 

In  satirical  comedy  such  abuses  of  language  may  very  well  be  introduced,  for 
the  sake  of  pillorying  them.  Shakespeare  —  whose  comedy  is  not  in  the  technical 
sense  satirical  —  has  a  few  examples  of  this  sort,  the  most  marked  being  in  the 
case  of  the  word  element  in  the  first  scene  of  the  third  act  of  Twelfth  Night,  to 
which  I  have  referred  on  a  former  occasion. 


566  THE  BRITISH   NATION  Lect.  XII. 

In  speaking  of  the  relations  of  Chaucer  to  his  time  and  to 
the  earlier  literature  of  the  language,  I  observed  that  his  style 
of  expression  was  eclectic,  that  he  coined  no  words  and  im- 
ported few,  but  contented  himself  with  the  existing  stock  of 
native  and  already  naturalized  foreign  terms  —  the  excellence 
of  his  diction  consisting  in  the  judgment  and  taste  of  his 
selection,  and  hi-s  mutual  adaptation  of  terms  individually 
familiar. 

For  the  purposes  of  Chaucer  and  his  age,  for  the  expression 
of  the  limited  range  of  thought  and  subject  with  which  the 
English  nature  of  his  time  was  conversant,  a  limited  vocabulary 
sufficed,  and  the  existing  literature  of  England  supplied  nearly 
the  entire  stock  of  words  demanded  for  the  uses  of  the  poet. 

But  in  Shakespeare's  day,  though  humanity,  English  humanity 
especially,  was  still  the  same,  yet  the  philosophical  conception 
of  humanity  was  immensely  enlarged,  diversified,  and  enriched. 
The  myriad-minded  Shakespeare — as,  by  an  application  of  a 
term  borrowed  from  one  of  the  Greek  fathers,  Coleridge  has  so 
appropriately  called  him — took  in  this  vast  conception  in  all 
its  breadth,  and  was  endowed  with  a  faculty  of  self-transforma- 
tion into  all  the  shapes  in  which  the  nature  of  man  has  been 
incarnated.  He  hence  required  a  variety  of  phraseologies  — 
words  and  combinations  of  words — as  great  as  the  varieties  of 
humanity  itself  are  numerous. 

Now  this  compass  and  flexibility  of  expression  could  be  found 
only  in  the  language  of  a  people  who  possessed  such  a  moral 
and  intellectual  constitution,  and  had  enjoyed  such  a  moral  and 
social  training,  as  had  previously  fallen  to  the  lot  of  no  modern 
nation. 

The  English  people,  as  I  have  before  observed,  is  a  composite 
nation,  resulting  from  the  fusion  of  a  Grermanic  with  a  Scandi- 
navian and  a  Gallo-Koman  race.  Its  language  is  made  up  of 
ingredients  derived  from  sources  as  varied  as  its  blood,  and 
England  thus  unites,  in  its  children  and  its  speech,  the  ethno- 
logical elements,  which,  in  their  separate  action  in  the  social  and 


Lect.  XII.  THE  BRITISH  NAT! 


political  life  of  Continental  Europe,  have  shown  themselves  most 
efficient  in  all  great  and  worthy  achievement. 

In  the  political  history  and  condition  of  the  England  of 
Elizabeth's  time,  there  were  circumstances  eminently  favourable 
to  many-sided  intellectual  progress,  and  to  the  development  of  a 
wide  variety  of  individual  character.  Although  the  different 
nationalities,  which  had  contributed  to  the  population  of  Eng- 
land, had  become  so  far  amalgamated  as  to  have  produced  a 
recognizable  uniformity  of  character,  yet  the  chemical  combina- 
tion had  not  been  so  complete  as  wholly  to  extinguish  the  sepa- 
rate traits  of  each.  These  had  propagated,  and  still  propagate, 
themselves  more  or  less  unmixed,  from  century  to  century,  just 
as,  in  human  and  brute  life,  peculiarities  of  remote  ancestry 
manifest  themselves  in  late  descendants,  and  often  reappear  in 
lines  where  for  generations  they  had  seemed  to  be  extinct. 
Hence,  the  English  have  in  all  ages  been  remarkable  for  indi- 
viduality, and  what  we  call  originality,  or,  if  you  please,  eccen- 
tricity or  oddity  of  character. 

These  supposed  individualities  usually  combine,  with  some- 
thing that  is  peculiar  to  the  man  John  or  Peter,  much  more  that 
is  common  to  a  nation,  a  family,  or  a  class,  and  the  eccentric 
person  is,  in  reality,  oftener  a  typical  or  representative  man  than 
an  anomaly.  He  is  noticed  as  a  straDge  or  peculiar  individual, 
not  because  his  character  is  a  departure  from  the  general  laws 
of  humanity,  but  because  he  is,  locally  or  chronologically,  sepa- 
rated from  the  class  to  which  he  belongs,  and  we  observe  him 
as  an  isolated  phenomenoD,  not  as  an  instance  of  a  species.* 

*  True  imaginative  conception  o;  character,  whether  in  dramatic  or  in  narrative 
literature,  depends  more  upon  power  of  observation  than  of  invention.  The 
truest  personages  in  fiction  are  those  most  accurately  copied  from  actual  life,  and 
the  impression  produced  upon  us  by  a  character  in  a  work  o.  imagination  is  just 
in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  we  recognize  it  as  real.  We  do  not  know, 
historically,  how  far  Shakespeare  drew  from  individual  nature,  how  far  his  per- 
sonages are  portraits ;  but  modern  criticism  and  literary  history  are  continually 
accumulating  evidence  to  prove  that  all  great  artists  record  what  they  see,  much 
more  frequently  than  they  invent  what  they  have  never  witnessed. 

Modern  English  literature  has  not  produced  a  more  Shakespearian  —  I  might 


568  THE   BRITISH   NATION  Lect.  XII. 

The  free  development  of  these  various  forms  and  types  of 
humanity  in  England  ha.s  been  much  favoured  by  a  detached 
geographical  position,  which  has  protected  the  nation  against 
controlling  foreign  influences,  by  the  extended  commerce  and 
navigation,  which  its  long  line  of  coast,  its  numerous  harbours, 
its  coal  and  tin,  the  excellent  quality  of  its  wool,  and  some 
other  native  products,  have  secured  to  it,  and  perhaps  in  a  still 
greater  degree  by  the  character  of  its  political  institutions, 
which  have  been,  from  a  remote  age,  of  a  more  popular  and 
liberal  character  than  those  of  any  of  the  great  Continental 
states. 

English  life,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  was  full  of  multifarious 
experiences.  There  had  always  been  a  greater  number  and 
variety  of  stimulating  tendencies  and  influences,  and  greater 
practical  liberty  of  yielding  to  them,  in  England  than  in  any 
other  modern  nation ;  and  consequently,  in  the  time  of  Shakes- 
peare, the  human  intellect,  the  human  heart,  affections,  and 
passions,  were  there  more  fully  and  variously  developed,  and 
the  articulate  expression  of  all  these  mental  and  moral  con- 
ditions and  impulses  more  cultivated  and  diversified,  than  in 
any  contemporaneous  people. 

In  all  the  facilities  for  the  observation  of  human  life  and 
nature  on  a  wide  and  comprehensive  scale,  the  Englishman  of 
Shakespeare's  time  was  at  a  more  advanced  point  than  has  even 
yet  been  reached  in  the  society  of  any  other  of  the  Grothic  or 
Eomance  nations.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  have  such  an  incontestable  superiority  over  the 
drama  of  all  other  modern  countries,  and  why  so  many  thoughts 
which,  in  the  recent  literature  of  Continental  Europe,  have  been 
hailed  as  new  revelations,  are,  to  the  Englishman,  but  the  thou- 
sandth repetition  of  old  and  familiar  oracles,  or  generalizations 

say  a  more  original  —  comic  character  than  Lever's  Major  Monsoon  in  Charles 
O'MaUey.  But  Major  Monsoon  is  well  known  to  be  a  minutely  accurate  portrait 
of  the  character,  a  faithful  chronicle  of  the  sayings  and  doings,  of  a  real  living 
person. 


Lect.  XII.  CHAUCER  AND   SHAKESPEAEE  569 

which  have,  from  time  immemorial,  been  matters  of  too  uni- 
versal and  every-day  consciousness  to  have  been  thought  worthy 
of  a  place  in  English  literature  at  all. 

Shakespeare  stood,  to  the  age  of  Elizabeth  and  of  James,  in 
just  the  position  which  Chaucer  occupied  with  respect  to  that 
of  Edward  III.  and  of  Eichard  II. ;  and  in  these  two  authors,  the 
genius  and  the  literature  of  their  respective  ages  reached  its 
culminating  point.  For  the  excellence  of  each,  all  preceding 
English  history  and  literature  was  a  necessary  preparation,  and 
the  dialect  of  each  was  composed  by  an  application  of  the  same 
principles  to  the  philological  material  which  earlier  labourers 
had  gathered  for  them. 

The  material  thus  prepared  for  the  two  great  masters  of  the 
English  tongue  was  in  a  very  different  state  when  it  passed 
under  their  respective  manipulation ;  and  it  may  be  seriously 
questioned  whether,  simply  as  a  philological  constructor,  Chaucer 
were  not  the  greater  architect  of  the  two.  In  Chaucer's  time, 
every  department  of  the  language  was  rude,  defective,  and  un- 
polished, and  the  task  of  enriching,  harmonizing,  and  adapting 
was  performed  by  him  alone.  Shakespeare  had  been  preceded 
by  a  multitude  of  skilful  artists,  who  had  improved  and  refined 
all  the  various  special  vocabularies  which  make  up  the  totality 
of  the  English  language ;  and  the  common  dialect  which  more 
or  less  belongs  to  all  imaginative  composition  had  been  carried 
by  others  to  almost  as  high  a  pitch  of  perfection  as  is  found  in 
Shakespeare  himself. 

Chaucer,  as  a  linguistic  reformer,  had  great  advantages  over 
Shakespeare,  in  possessing  a  better  philological  training.  He 
grew  up  in  an  almost  equal  familiarity  with  French,  then  a 
highly  cultivated  dialect,  and  with  his  mother  tongue,  and  he 
was  also  well  acquainted  with  Latin  and  with  Italian ;  but  we 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  Shakespeare  had  acquired  any- 
thing more  than  the  merest  smattering  of  any  language  but 
his  own. 

But  although  the  dialect  of  Shakespeare  does  not  exhibit  the 


570  Shakespeare's  diction  Lect.  xii. 

same  relative  superiority  as  that  of  Chaucer  over  all  older  and 
contemporaneous  literature,  its  absolute  superiority  is,  neverthe- 
less, unquestionable.  I  have  before  had  occasion  to  remark  that 
the  greatest  authors  very  often  confine  themselves  to  a  restricted 
vocabulary,  and  that  the  power  of  their  diction  lies,  not  in  the 
multitude  of  words,  but  in  skilful  combination  and  adaptation 
of  a  few.  This  is  strikingly  verified  by  an  examination  of  the 
stock  of  words  employed  by  Shakespeare.  He  introduces, 
indeed,  terms  borrowed  from  every  art  and  every  science,  from 
all  theoretical  knowledge  and  all  human  experience;  but  his 
entire  vocabulary  little  exceeds  fifteen  thousand  words,  and  of 
these  a  large  number,  chiefly  of  Latin  origin,  occur  but  once  or 
at  most  twice  in  his  pages.  The  affluence  of  his  speech  arises 
from  variety  of  combination,  not  from  numerical  abundance. 
And  yet  the  authorized  vocabulary  of  Shakespeare's  time  pro- 
bably embraced  twice  or  thrice  the  number  of  words  which  he 
found  necessary  for  his  purposes ;  for  though  there  were  at  that 
time  no  dictionaries  which  exhibit  a  great  stock  of  words,  yet  in 
perusing  Hooker,  the  old  translators,  and  the  early  voyagers  and 
travellers,  we  find  a  verbal  wealth,  a  copiousness  of  diction, 
which  forms  a  singular  contrast  with  the  philological  economy 
of  the  great  dramatist. 

In  his  theory  of  dramatic  construction,  Shakespeare  owes  little 
—  in  his  conception  of  character,  nothing  —  to  earlier  or  con- 
temporary artists ;  but  in  his  diction,  everything  except  felicity 
of  selection  and  combination.  The  existence  of  the  whole 
copious  English  vocabulary  was  necessary,  in  order  that  his 
marvellous  gift  of  selection  might  have  room  for  its  exercise. 
Without  a  Cimabue  and  a  Giotto,  a  Fra  Angelico  and  a  Perugino, 
there  could  not  have  been  a  Eaphael ;  and  all  previous  English 
philology  and  literature  were  indispensable  to  the  creation  of  a 
medium,  through  which  such  revelations  of  man  as  had  not  yet 
been  made  to  man  might  be  possible  to  the  genius  of  a  Shake- 
speare. 


INDEX. 


ALEXANDER  the  Great,   story  of, 
196 
Alexander,  Prof.,  monosyllabic  sonnets, 

98 
Alfred,  King,  unknown  to  early  English 

literature,  230 
Ancren  Riwle,  The,  169 
Anglo-Saxon  art,  105 

—  Chronicle,  104 

—  language,  character  of,  92 

origin  of,  45,  48 

mixed,  47,  55 

our  knowledge  of,  88 

Latin  words  in,  60 

not  English,  56 

— •  —  pronunciation  of,  62,  69 

orthography  of,  65,  69 

inflections  in,  loss  of,  107,  111 

grammar  of,  119 

derivative    and    composite,    95, 

113 

vocabulary  of,  89,  93,  94 

moral  and  intellectual  vocabulary 

of,    early  obsolete,  135,  136, 

443 
formation  of  words  in,  113 

—  literature,  loss  of,  11 

—  —  no  influence  on  English,  100 
unhist.oric,  102 — 105 

—  manuscripts,  age  of,  54 

—  people,  origin  of,  43,  49 
and  Celts,  60,  85 

and  Scandinavians,  62 — 69 

and  Normans,  103,  106 

—  translation  of  Gospels,  96 
Armenian  language,  construction  in,  46 
Ascham,  Eoger,  works,  551 


BACON,  Lord,  essays,  549 
Ballads,  Old  English,  13,  527 
Beowulf,  poem  of,  101 
Berners,  Lord,  translation  of  Froissart, 

495 
Biondelli,  remarks  on  the  dialects  of 

Italy,  338 
Body  and  Soul,  Dialogue  between,  240 
Boethius,  Alfred's  extracts  from,  133 
Brunetto    Latini,     why    he   wrote   in 

French,  243 


CANALE,  Martino  de,  why  he  wrote 
in  French,  243 
Catalan,  monosyllabic  poems  in,  97,  117 
Caxton,  dialect  of,  483,  note ;  490 

—  influence   of,  on  English  language 

and  literature,  483 
Celtic  etymologies,  85,  542 
Chaucer,  copies  and  editions  of,  17 
' —  Grammar  of,  18 

—  Canterbury  Tales,  417 

—  and  Gower,  Lecture  ix,,  and  specially, 

428 

—  influence  on  English,  381—388 

—  and  Froissart,  395 

—  Romaunt  of  the  Eose,  390,  402 
Cheke,  Sir  John,  Hurt  of  Sedition,  521 

. New  Testament,  521,  532 

Cimbric,  changes  of  letter  in,  195 
Classical  learning  and  Reformation,  507, 

524,  553 

—  literature,  loss  of,  11 
Commerce,  vocabulary  of,  292 
Contzen,  Wanderungen  der  Kelten,  31 
Curtasye,  Boke  of,  291 


572 


INDEX 


DEF 

DEFERENCE  to  great  names  in  lite- 
rature, 342 
Dialects,  divergence  of,  64,  82 
Drama,  dialect  of,  664 
Dulcarnon,  etymology  of,  126,  note 
Dutch  literature,  old,  value  of,  447 


77  Final,  in  English  and  French,  456 

•J-^  Edward  III.,  Poem  on  the  Death 
of,  287 

Emphasis,  changes  in,  67 

England  and  the  Papacy,  1,  9,  340  ^ 

English  language,  foreign  constructions 
in,  74 

changes  in,  33,  257 

commencement  of,  140,  145,  262 

dialects  in,  151 

grammar  of,  21 

mixed,  47 

little  used  for  official  purposes 

before  fifteenth  century,  479 

periods  in,  143 

vocabulary  of,  in  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, 140,  260 

—  literature,  commencement  of,    146, 

188,  259,  262 

chronology  of,  2 

essential  character  of,  5 

independence  of,  5,  6 

early,  unhistorical,  226,  230 

minor  poems,  early,  242 

—  manuscripts,  440 

—  nation  imbued  with  Eomance  cul- 

ture, 401 

—  nationality,  character  of,  566,  568 

—  people,  first  existence  of,  275 
Euphuism  in  English  literature,  544 


FABLES,  popular,  antiquity  of,  396 
Fer  in  Kyng  Horn,  meaning  of, 
215 
Fifteenth  century,  minor  poems  of,  465 
Fisher,  Bishop,  style  of,  493 
French  language,  double  form  of,  23 

mixed,  58 

common    literary    language    of 

Europe  in  thirteenth  century, 
243 

use  of  in  England,  336 

—  words  how  introduced  into  English, 

265 
Frisic  dialects,  73 


LAY 

Frisic,  pronunciation  of,  61 
Froissart  as  an  historian,  487 
—  in  England,  336 


GENDEE,  grammatical,  108 
Germanic  dialects,  19,  51,  76,  80 
Golding's  translation  of  Ovid,  555 
Gothic,  how  used  in  this  course,  41 
Gower's  Confessio  Amantis,  432 
Grammar,  study  of,  26,  27 
in  England,  507—550 


HAWES,  Pastyme  of  Pleasure,  512 
Heimskringla,  Danish  critic's  opi- 
nion of,  105 
Henry  III.,  proclamation  of,  189 
Hereford's  share  in  Wycliffite  versions, 

344,  360,  440 
Heywood,  John,  works  of,  525 
Historical  literature  of  Middle  Ages, 

10,  55 
Holinshed's  Chronicle,  537 
Hooker,  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  559 
Horn,  Kyng,  Gesteof,  211 
Humour,  characteristic  of  English  lite- 
rature, 298,  300 

—  wanting  in  Anglo-Saxon  literature, 

298 

—  and  wit  products  of  culture,  299 
hw,  sound  of,  171 


ICELANDIC  sagas,  character  of,  254, 
note 
Icelandic  vocabulary,  94 
Individuality  of  character,  567 
Invention  in  literature,  398 
Italian  dialects,  note  on,  337 
Italy,  traditional  culture  in,  299 
iw,  sound  of,  65,  171 


TAMES  I.,  of  Scotland,  works  of,  457 

LANGLANDE.    See  Piers  Ploughman 
Language,  how  affected  by  great 
authors,  382 

by  external  causes,  147,  259 

—  how  classed,  106 
Latimer,  sermons  of,  517 
Layamon,  Chronicle  of,  154 


INDEX 


573 


LIB 

Libel  of  English  Policy,  468 

Lillie,  the  Euphuist,  544 

Linguistic  studies,  28 

Literary  property,  396 

Literature,  national,  what  constitutes, 

263 
Local  dialects,  509,  note 
Lollards  in  England,  7 
Lord's  Prayer  in  different  dialects,  76 
Lovely,  vulgar  misuse  of,  564,  note 
Luxury,  not  inconsistent  with  grossness 

of  manners,  291 
Lydgate,  works  of,  464 
Lyric  poetry.  Early  English,  253 


MACARONIC  poetry,  English,  244 
of  Ausonius,  249 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  extract  from,  271 

vocabulary  of,  268 

Minot,  Laurence,  poems  of,  277 
Miracle  plays,  sermon  against,  448 
Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  535 
Moeso-Gothic  text    of   Matthew  viii., 
393 

—  language,  90 

Monsoon,  Major,  in  Charles  O'Malley, 

568,  note 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  English  works  of, 

501,  528 
Morte  d' Arthur,  488 

—  —  Southey's  criticism  on,  487 


"VrATURE,  appreciation  and  love  of, 
IN     415 

Nautical  dialect,  334 
Nibelungen  Lied,  19 
•  Norman  conquest  of  England,   effects 
of,  138 
Normans  in  England,  138 


/^    Normal  sound  of,  %5 
^^ ^     Occleve,  Thomas,  works  of,  445 
Ohther's  Narrative,  extracts  from,  125 
Ormulum,  the,  177 
Orthography  and  pronunciation,  194 
Owl  and  Nightingale,  205 


PALSGRAVE,  French  grammar,  509 
Pa,pacy,  ascription  of  Divine  attri- 
butes to,  8,  34 


SCI 
Parsing  machine.  Brown's,  40 
Participles  in  Gothic  languages,  72 
Pecock's  Repressor,  473 
People,  meaning  of  the  word,  275 
Pet  words,  national,  664 
Phaer's  translation  of  Virgil,  555 
Philology  neglected,  25,  39 
Piers  Ploughman,  date  and  character  of, 

295,  334 

imitators  of,  334 

metre  of,  286 

Political  Poems,  Early  English,  249 
Poetry,  dialect  of,  149 
Promptorium  Parvulorum,  509 
Pronunciation  of  Danish  and  Swedish, 

68 

—  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  68 
Purvey,  revision  of  Wycliffite  versions, 

344,  362 

—  version  of  Psalm  cii.,  376 

—  on  translation,  363 
Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesy,  552 


RECORDS  of   common   life,   philo- 
logical value  of,  452 
Reformation  and  classical  learning,  507, 
524,  553 

—  effects  of,  12 

Regular  and  irregular  verbs,  377 
Religious  dialect  in  English,  365 
Rhyme    and    Romance    words,    390, 

515 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  poem  on,  226 
Richard  II.,  poem  on,  334 
Robert  of  Brunne,  235 
Robert  of  Gloucester,  Chronicle,  231 

Lives  of  the  Saints,  233 

Roman  de  la  Rose,  and  Chaucer's  ver- 
sion, 445 

—  Dutch  translation  of,  447 
Romance,  how  used  in  this  course,  42 
Romance  languages,  origin  and  charac- 
ter of,  15,  37 

—  oldest  specimens  of,  71 
Runic  characters,  69 


O  Verbal  ending  in,  216 
*^j     Sackville,  works  of,'  535 
Satirical  poems  against  clergy,  251 
Scandinavian  languages,  52,  81 
Science  and  art,  influence  of,  on  English 
vocabulary,  558 


674 


INDEX 


SEE 
Seetzen's  use  of  Platt-Deutsch,  338 
Senses,    names    and    division    of,    in 

Anglo-Saxon  and  Old  English,  135 
Shakespeare  and  Chaucer,  669 
Shakespeare  and  the  English  language, 

569 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  works  of,  547 
Skelton,  works  of,  511 
Sounds,   simple    and    compound,    171, 

note 
—  foreign,  appreciation  of,  87 
Spenser,  Edmund,  works  of,  548 
Stanihurst,  works  of,  538 
Surrey  and  Wyatt,  works  of,  515 
Surtees'  Psalter,  216 
Sylvester,   translation  of    Du  Bartas, 

547 


THEOLOGY,  study  of,  in  England, 
506,  558 
—  dialect  of,  493 
Thomas  a  Becket  on  the  Papacy,  8 
Translation,  practice  of,  412 
Translations,  effect  of,  on  English,  553 


WYC 

Travel   and    commerce,  effect    of,  on 

English,  557 
Tyndale,  New  Testament,  505,  611,  530 

TT  Normal  sound  of,  65 
^ ,     Ulfilas,  Bishop,  90,  91 

Unities,  dramatic,  526,  537 

Urban,  Pope,  8 

VERSIFICATION,  Gothic  and  Eo- 
mance,  276,  283,  284 

WIT,  product  of  culture,  299 
Words  individually  considered, 
383,  442 

—  in  combination,  384 

Wycliffe  and  his  school,  Lecture  viii., 
pp.  339—378 

—  Apology  for  the  Lollards,  367 

—  commentary  on  Gospels,  366 

—  New  Testament,  370 

—  literary  influence  of,  371 

—  opinions  of  the  Papacy,  and  advice 
to  the  Pope,  8 


a.  ^^ i--^    t 


d  -. 


0^ 


z'      A 


tH-'i^    Sa     -  o  ^-C 


£t  CIO 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DTTE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


J^Q^LM,>-v4^  g, gee 3 4 


28a 


1^ 


Ml 


